OF NATURAL HISTORY. 417 



fuperior to that of any other animal. He alone enjoys the power 

 of communicating and expreffing his ideas by articulate and artifi- 

 cial language. This ineftimable prerogative is, perhaps, one of the 

 greateft fecondary bonds of fociety, and the greateft fource of im- 

 provement to the human intelledt. Without artificial language, 

 though Nature has beftow^ed on every animal a mode of expreffing 

 its wants and defires, its pleafures and pains, what an humiliating 

 figure would the human fpecies exhibit, even upon the fuppoficion 

 that they did aflbciate ? But, when language and aflbciation are con- 

 joined, the human intelled, in the progrefs of time, arrives at a high 

 degree of perfedion. Society gives rife to virtue, honour, govern- 

 ment, fubordination, arts, fcience, order, happinefs. All the indivi- 

 duals of a community condudl themfelves upon a regulated fyfiera. 

 Under the influence of eftablifhed laws, kings and magiftrates, by 

 the exercife of legal authority, encourage virtue, reprefs vice, and 

 diffufe, through the extent of their jurifdidions, the happy efFeds 

 of their adminiftratlon. In fociety, as in a fertile climate, human 

 talents germinate and are expanded ; the mechanical and liberal arts 

 flourifh; poets, orators, hiftorians, philofophers, lawyers, phyficians, 

 and theologians, are produced. Thefe truths are pleafant ; and it 

 were to be wiflied that no evils accompanied them. But, through 

 the whole extent of Nature, it fhould appear, from our limited views, 

 that good and evil, pleafure and pain, are neceflfary and perpetual 

 concomitants. 



The advantages of fociety are immenfe and invaluable. But the 

 inconveniencies, hardfhips, injuftice, oppreffions, and cruelties, which 

 too often originate from it are great and lamentable. Even under 

 the mildeft and heft regulated governments, animofities, jealoufies, 

 avarice, fraud, and chicane, are unfortunately never removed from 

 our obfervation. In abfolute monarchies, and particularly in defpo- 

 tic governments, the fcenes of private and of general calamity and 

 t 3 G diftrefs 



