198 DISTINCTIONS OF MAN, 



jecting and acting in a systematic manner. The strongest 

 and most sagacious animals have not the capacity of com- 

 manding the inferior tribes, or of reducing them to a state 

 of servitude. The stronger, indeed, devour the weaker : 

 but this action implies an urgent necessity only, and a vora- 

 cious appetite ; qualities very different from that which 

 produces a train of actions all directed to one common de- 

 sign. If animals be endowed with this faculty, why do not 

 some of them assume the reins of government over others, 

 and force them to furnisli their food, to watch for them, 

 and to relieve the sick or wounded ? But among animals 

 there is no mark of subordination, nor the least trace of any 

 of them being able to recognize or feel a superiority in his 

 nature above that of other species. We should therefore 

 conclude, that all animals are in this respect of the same 

 nature, and that the nature of man is not only far superior 

 but likewise of a very different kind from that of the brute. 

 Thrown on the surface of the globe, weak, naked, and 

 defenceless, man appeared created for inevitable destruction. 

 Evils assailed him on every side ; the remedies remained 

 hidden : but he received from his Creator the gift of in- 

 ventive geniusj which enabled him to discover them. His 

 exertions were roused by the various wants of food, cloth- 

 ing, and dwelling — by the infinite variety of climate, soil, 

 and other circumstances : — 



•Pater ipse colendi 



Haud facilem esse viatn voluit ; primusque per artem 

 Movit agros ; curis acuens mortalia corda. 



This prerogative of invention seemed so important in the 

 earlier periods of society, that it has been honoured with 

 divine worship, as the Thoth of the Egyptians, tlie Hermes 

 of the Greeks. 



"The first savages collected in the forests a few nourish- 

 ing fruits, a few salutary roots, and thus supplied their most 

 immediate wants. The first shepherds observed that the 

 stars move in a regular course, and made use of them to 

 guide their journeys across the plains of the desert. Such 

 was the origin of the mathematical and physical sciences. 



