Of course, no worship of a fuperior being, or belief of a future existence.+

Selfishness

As this quality is strongest in the folitary savage, and is nearly extinguished in the last state of society, we must suppose it to be very powerful in the Iron-Age, and in fact we find it fo. Savages feek food, &c. for themselves only, unless forced to procure it for their fuperiors:

few

It has been faid, there are no people fo rude, but have fome religious worship-but this is not true-man in the Iron-Age, which we are now defcribing, has invariably been found untinctured with any principle of gratitude to the deity for bleffings received; of hope, for bleffings to come; or of fear, for laws tranfgreffed. When Warburton, in his Divine Legation of Mofes, afferted, that all nations worshipped fomething or other, and believed in future rewards and punishments; one of his adverfaries brought the Hottentots as an instance to the contrary-both were right.—The afsertion was taken from man in his second stage of fociety; but the objection, from man in his favage

state.

few inftances occur of their parting with any thing from a principle of kind

nefs.

A want of curiofity

That is for fuch things as are far beyond any to which they are accustomed.Thus, they do not confider a ship as an object of attention; but a canoe much larger, or more adorned than they have been used to fee, would attract their notice.*

I have already remarked, that in the fame Age, one people may be civilized, and another, barbarous: to which muft be added, that these different ftates of fociety exift in the fame country at the fame time, according to the different fituations or employment of the inhabi

tants.

*Most of these characteristics are taken from descriptions of favage people, by the late voyagers, who found them in the fame ftate of fociety, tho' in different countries.

tants. Thus a mere ruftic in England, who never faw any other affemblage of houses or people than the neighbouring village or church presented, is as it were extinguished in the capital; but his curiofity would be excited, and highly gratified by a fair, or a cathedral church. In a fair are more people, more cattle, and a greater difplay of finery than he ufually meets with; but it is all of that kind for which his ideas are already prepared. The fame may be faid of the cathedral-he confiders it as his own village church upon a grander fcale. But an habitual exercife of the judgment is required to comprehend an idea, greatly fuperior to common exertion, as in the instance of the ship abovementioned: and it belongs to a cultivated ftate of the mind to admit an idea perfectly new.

Whenever it happens that a people in the Iron-Age have abated of perfonal violence, have made fome attempts, how

ever imperfect, towards art and science, that they entertain religious ideas, and are curious in observation and enquiries, they are then getting forward into the Brazen-Age.

We may confider the Brazen-Age as that state of society when people begin to refuse immediate gratifications for future convenience.

Very few advances from the favage ftate are neceffary for a Koriac, fometimes to feel the want of help from a wife whom he had killed in his furyto find that if he had not gorged himself yesterday, he might have had something to eat to day. These fenfations, often repeated, at last produce a restraint upon his inclination, and he finds that it is for his intereft, fometimes to refift immediate gratification.

When a greater number of people are affociated together than in the Iron-Age.

If in the quarrels of individuals, repeated victory happen to the fame perfon, he naturally becomes a chief-When chiefs difpute, if one frequently gets the better of others, he becomes master of an extent of country; which, from the fame train of caufes and effects upon a larger fcale, at last makes him a king;

this is the origin of defpotism, which undoubtedly is the most natural and ancient of all governments.*

If this

king,

* And defpotifm, fooner or later, produces liberty-Extraordinary acts of cruelty committed by a weak Prince, give the first hint for shaking off his authority-His fubjects rebel and conquer. They then make terms with their Prince, and oblige him to govern upon principles dictated by themselves, as in the cafe of King John; or refolve to have no Prince, and fo become a Republic, as formerly in England, and latterly in France-And this is the origin of all free governments. But as in the avoiding of one extreme, we naturally run into the other-A Republic, which fucceeds to defpotifm, is little better than no government at all, by perfonal liberty being pushed to excefs. This

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