and in cold climates they soon learn to
apply to that use those of the animals they have conquered; they have
but two feet to run with, but they have two hands to defend themselves
with, and provide for all their wants; it costs them perhaps a great
deal of time and trouble to make their children walk, but the mothers
carry them with ease; an advantage not granted to other species of
animals, with whom the mother, when pursued, is obliged to abandon her
young ones, or regulate her steps by theirs. In short, unless we admit
those singular and fortuitous concurrences of circumstances, which I
shall speak of hereafter, and which, it is very possible, may never
have existed, it is evident, in every state of the question, that the
man, who first made himself clothes and built himself a cabin,
supplied himself with things which he did not much want, since he had
lived without them till then; and why should he not have been able to
support in his riper years, the same kind of life, which he had
supported from his infancy?

Alone, idle, and always surrounded with danger, savage man must be
fond of sleep, and sleep lightly like other animals, who think but
little, and may, in a manner, be said to sleep all the time they do
not think: self-preservation being almost his only concern, he must
exercise those faculties most, which are most serviceable in attacking
and in defending, whether to subdue his prey, or to prevent his
becoming that of other animals: those organs, on the contrary, which
softness and sensuality can alone improve, must remain in a state of
rudeness, utterly incompatible with all manner of delicacy; and as his
senses are divided on this point, his touch and his taste must be
extremely coarse and blunt; his sight, his hearing, and his smelling
equally subtle: such is the animal state in general, and accordingly
if we may believe travellers, it is that of most savage nations. We
must not therefore be surprised, that the Hottentots of the Cape of
Good Hope, distinguish with their naked eyes ships on the ocean, at as
great a distance as the Dutch can discern them with their glasses; nor
that the savages of America should have tracked the Spaniards with
their noses, to as great a degree of exactness, as the best dogs could
have done; nor that all these barbarous nations support nakedness
without pain, use such large quantities of Piemento to give their food
a relish, and drink like water the strongest liquors of Euro