Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
An Essay On The Different States And Conditions Of Life.
AN ESSAY ON THE DIFFERENT STATES AND CONDITIONS OF LIFE .
By STANISLAUS , TJlTE _ KIXG _ OF _ POI . AND , DUKE Or I . ORRAIN ANB BAR .
CEVERAL are persuaded that there should be no inequality of rank £ > or condition among men . They pretend that the end for which the first man was created did not make this inequality necessary ; that his descendants were for a long time unacquainted with it ; that in the simplicity , and , as it were , in the bloom of nature , men had idea of usurpation and servitudeand that it was not even
susno ; pected , that distinftions and dignities , which now do less honour to their p ' o-sessors , than degrade human nature , could ever exist , and become objects of ambition and jealousy . It is vices , then , say they , those unliappy fruits ofthe disobedience of our first father , which have jnade masters and slaves , and which have raised some to a state of orandeur and independence , and reduced others to a state of
meanness and subjection . This op inion carries with it an air of truth ; but , if I dare not contradict it , I am equally afraid to adopt it . I acknowledge the unhapp iness mankind has been involved in by the crime of the first man ; but I cannot conceive that there would have been less inequality on . { lie earth , if this crime had been never committed . Can it be doubted when a succession of parents and children is once admitted , and
consequently authority in the former , and an absolutely necessary de- pendence in the lalter ? I grant that this inequality subsisted only at first within the narrow limits of each family . I even take pleasure in representing to myself the human race in its infant state , but not such as the poets have desciibed it for us by the name of the Golden Age . 1 will not say , in
imitation of them , that rivulets of milk ancl wine then flowed in all parts of the earth , that the oaks dropped honey , and that nature produced of herself the most delicious fruits . What at least seems probable , is that the primitive men , scarce yet knowing how to _ lisp out the sounds of a language , which they had been forming by little and little , according to their perceptions and wants , lived with each other
amidst the sweets of confidence and peace . Desiring few things , and being able to procure them as easily as air or water , which none of them had an exclusive rig ht to , they spent their days without care , hatred , complaints , or disputes . Simple , and perhaps innocent without virtue , their chief occupation was in cultivating the earth round their habitationsor stretched at their ease under the shade of a beech ,
; they sought p leasure from seeing their flocks feed on the flowery fc-lds . They were quite unacquainted with either the warrior ' s trumpet that sounds the alarm for battle , or with the tempestuous seas , VOL . xi . c
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
An Essay On The Different States And Conditions Of Life.
AN ESSAY ON THE DIFFERENT STATES AND CONDITIONS OF LIFE .
By STANISLAUS , TJlTE _ KIXG _ OF _ POI . AND , DUKE Or I . ORRAIN ANB BAR .
CEVERAL are persuaded that there should be no inequality of rank £ > or condition among men . They pretend that the end for which the first man was created did not make this inequality necessary ; that his descendants were for a long time unacquainted with it ; that in the simplicity , and , as it were , in the bloom of nature , men had idea of usurpation and servitudeand that it was not even
susno ; pected , that distinftions and dignities , which now do less honour to their p ' o-sessors , than degrade human nature , could ever exist , and become objects of ambition and jealousy . It is vices , then , say they , those unliappy fruits ofthe disobedience of our first father , which have jnade masters and slaves , and which have raised some to a state of orandeur and independence , and reduced others to a state of
meanness and subjection . This op inion carries with it an air of truth ; but , if I dare not contradict it , I am equally afraid to adopt it . I acknowledge the unhapp iness mankind has been involved in by the crime of the first man ; but I cannot conceive that there would have been less inequality on . { lie earth , if this crime had been never committed . Can it be doubted when a succession of parents and children is once admitted , and
consequently authority in the former , and an absolutely necessary de- pendence in the lalter ? I grant that this inequality subsisted only at first within the narrow limits of each family . I even take pleasure in representing to myself the human race in its infant state , but not such as the poets have desciibed it for us by the name of the Golden Age . 1 will not say , in
imitation of them , that rivulets of milk ancl wine then flowed in all parts of the earth , that the oaks dropped honey , and that nature produced of herself the most delicious fruits . What at least seems probable , is that the primitive men , scarce yet knowing how to _ lisp out the sounds of a language , which they had been forming by little and little , according to their perceptions and wants , lived with each other
amidst the sweets of confidence and peace . Desiring few things , and being able to procure them as easily as air or water , which none of them had an exclusive rig ht to , they spent their days without care , hatred , complaints , or disputes . Simple , and perhaps innocent without virtue , their chief occupation was in cultivating the earth round their habitationsor stretched at their ease under the shade of a beech ,
; they sought p leasure from seeing their flocks feed on the flowery fc-lds . They were quite unacquainted with either the warrior ' s trumpet that sounds the alarm for battle , or with the tempestuous seas , VOL . xi . c