94 CLASS MAMAMALIA. 



culture, and the division of the soil into hereditary- 

 possessions. By means of agriculture the manual 

 labour of a portion of society has been found ade- 

 quate to the sustenance of the whole, and thus has 

 sufficient leisure been left for other occupations to 

 those not engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The 

 hope of securing by industry a comfortable subsis- 

 tence for himself and his posterity, has added a new 

 spur to the emulation of man. The discovery of a 

 circulating medium to represent property, by facili- 

 tating exchange, and rendering private fortunes 

 more independent, and more susceptible of increase, 

 has carried this emulation to the highest possible 

 degree ; but, by a necessary consequence, it has 

 also carried to the highest degree the vices of effe- 

 minacy, and the fury of ambition. 



In the successive stages of social development, 

 the natural propensity to reduce every thing to 

 general principles, and to trace the causes of the 

 phenomena of nature has produced contemplative 

 men, who have added new ideas to the general mass 

 of intellect. Such men have, for the most part, in 

 unenlightened ages, sought to convert their mental 

 superiority into the means of domination over their 

 fellow men, exaggerating their own merits, and dis- 

 guising their ignorance by the propagation of su- 

 perstition. 



An evil, still more irremediable, is the abuse of 

 physical power. Man, who at the present day can 

 bid defiance to the attacks of other animals, yet 

 constitutes the only species that is perpetually in a 



