organs fitting him to
become the master of the earth; and, it appears to me, that the account
given in Genesis of the first parents of mankind having been placed in a
garden fitted with everything necessary to their existence and enjoyment,
and ordered to increase and multiply there, is strictly in harmony with
reason, and accordant with all just metaphysical views of the human mind.
Man as he now exists can only be raised with great care and difficulty
from the infant to the mature state; all his motions are at first
automatic, and become voluntary by association; he has to learn
everything by slow and difficult processes, many months elapse before he
is able to stand, and many years before he is able to provide for the
common wants of life. Without the mother or the nurse in his infant
state, he would die in a few hours; and without the laborious discipline
of instruction and example, he would remain idiotic and inferior to most
other animals. His reason is only acquired gradually, and when in its
highest perfection is often uncertain in its results. He must,
therefore, have been created with instincts that for a long while
supplied the want of reason, and which enabled him from the first moment
of his existence to provide for his wants, to gratify his desires, and
enjoy the power and the activity of life.

_Phil_.--I acknowledge that your objection has some weight, but not so
much as you would attribute to it. I will suppose that the first created
man or men had certain powers or instincts, such as now belong to the
rudest savages of the southern hemisphere; I will suppose them created
with the use of their organs for defence and offence and with passions
and propensities enabling them to supply their own wants. And I oppose
the fact of races who are now actually in this state to your vague
historical or traditionary records; and their gradual progress or
improvement from this early state of society to that of the highest state
of civilisation or refinement may, I think, be easily deduced from the
exertions of reason assisted by the influence of the moral powers and of
physical circumstances. Accident, I conceive, must have had some
influence in laying the foundations of certain arts; and a climate in
which labour was not too oppressive, and in which the exertion of
industry was required to provide for the wants of life must have fixed
the character of the activity of the early improving people; where nature
is