2 DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY 



state of absolute helplessness, or falls in old age into 

 such protracted and lamentable imbecility. To no 

 other warm-blooded animal has nature denied that 

 indispensable covering without which the vicissitudes 

 of a temperate and the rigours of a cold climate are 

 equally insupportable ; and to scarcely any has she 

 been so sparing in external weapons, whether for 

 attack or defence. Destitute alike of speed to avoid 

 and of arms to repel the aggressions of his vora- 

 cious foes ; tenderly susceptible of atmospheric in- 

 fluences ; and unfitted for the coarse aliments which 

 the earth affords spontaneously during at least two 

 thirds of the year, even in temperate climates, 

 man, if abandoned to mere instinct, would be of all 

 creatures the most destitute and miserable. Dis- 

 tracted by terror and goaded by famine ; driven to 

 the most abject expedients for concealment from his 

 enemies, and to the most cowardly devices for the 

 seizure and destruction of his nobler prey, his exist- 

 ence would be one continued subterfuge or stratagem; 

 his dwelling would be in dens of the earth, in clefts 

 of rocks, or in the hollows of trees ; his food worms, 

 and the lower reptiles, or such few and crude pro- 

 ductions of the soil as his organs could be brought 

 to assimilate, varied with occasional relics, mangled 

 by more powerful beasts of prey, or contemned by 

 their more pampered choice. Remarkable only 

 for the absence of those powers and qualities 

 which obtain for other animals a degree of security 

 and respect, he would be disregarded by some, and 

 hunted down by others, till after a few generations 

 his species would become altogether extinct, or, at 

 best, would be restricted to a few islands in tropical 



