92 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



cation permits him to have other children in the 

 interval, and thus the perpetuity of the conjugal 

 union appears to be a law decreed by nature. The 

 long period of infantine imbecility gives rise to 

 another natural law, namely, the subordination of 

 each individual family. This again leads, by a 

 necessary consequence, to the entire system of 

 social order, as the descendants who found new 

 families will naturally preserve the relations which 

 arise from long and early habits. The disposition 

 to mutual assistance wonderfully augments and 

 strengthens the resources of intelligence and skill 

 in the human species. It becomes instrumental to 

 the subjection or repulsion of other animals ; has 

 enabled man to subsist and propagate under every 

 variety of temperature, and to cover the face of the 

 whole earth with beings similar to himself. 



In other respects man appears to possess nothing 

 resembling the instinct of animals. He is not stimu- 

 lated to any regular continuous exertion of industry 

 by innate ideas. All his knowledge is the con- 

 sequence of his own sensation, or of those of his 

 predecessors. The results of human experience, 

 transmitted by language, modified by reflection, 

 and applied to our various wants and enjoyments, 

 have originated all the arts of human life, whether 

 useful or ornamental. Language and letters by 

 affording the means of preserving and communicat- 

 ing all acquired knowledge, form, for our species, 

 an indefinite source of perfection. 



The gradations, however, in the development of 



