[ 25 ] 



If we would know what men are in a ftate 

 of nature, we may turn our eyes on defpotic 

 princes, and we fhall fee them adting without 

 any law or confcience to reftrain them from 

 what their natural inclinations didate. To fum 

 up all the faculties of man, we muft examine 

 the whole brute creation, and take in all their 

 qualities, fuch as in man would claim the 

 names of virtues or vices : and this will give 

 us the various mixtures of virue and vice in 

 the human fpecies, in fome of whom the vir- 

 tues are predominant, and in others the vices, 

 though none of them are without a mixture 

 of both, and they are more or lefs virtuous 

 or vicious in proportion to fuch mixture. 



Had man been created benevolent to all 

 of his own kind, having no will or defire 

 to fubdue or rule over others, or invade 

 their property, and likewife endowed with a 

 defire to affift and help his weaker neigh- 

 bour ; had peace and tranquillity been in- 

 violably maintained amongft the whole race ; 

 the world, before this time, muft have been 



fo 



