Produced by Stan Goodman, William Craig, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
This is an authorized facsimile of the original book, and was produced in 1971 by microfilm-xerography by University Microfilms, A Xerox Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
AN ESSAY on the HISTORY OF CIVIL SOCIETY.
PART I. OF THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN NATURE.
SECTION I. Of the question relating to the State of Nature
SECTION II. Of the principles of Self Preservation
SECTION III. Of the principles of Union among Mankind
SECTION IV. Of the principles of War and Dissention
SECTION I. Of the informations on this subject, which are derived from Antiquity
SECTION II. Of Rude Nations prior to the Establishment of Property
SECTION III. Of rude Nations, under the impressions of Property and Interest
PART III. OF THE HISTORY OF POLICY AND ARTS.
SECTION I. Of the Influences of Climate and Situation
SECTION II. The History of Political Establishments
SECTION III. Of National Objects in general, and of Establishments and Manners relating to them
SECTION V. Of National Defence and Conquest
SECTION VIII. Of the History of Literature
PART IV. OF CONSEQUENCES THAT RESULT FROM THE ADVANCEMENT OF CIVIL AND COMMERCIAL ARTS.
SECTION I. Of the Separation of Arts and Professions
SECTION II. Of the Subordination consequent to the Separation of Arts and Professions
SECTION III. Of the Manners of Polished and Commercial Nations
SECTION I. Of supposed National Eminence, and of the Vicissitudes of Human Affairs
SECTION II. Of the Temporary Efforts and Relaxations of the National Spirit
SECTION III. Of Relaxations in the National Spirit incident to Polished Nations
PART VI. OF CORRUPTION AND POLITICAL SLAVERY.
SECTION III. Of the Corruption incident to Polished Nations
SECTION V. Of Corruption, as it tends to Political Slavery
SECTION VI. Of the Progress and Termination of Despotism
OF THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN NATURE.
OF THE QUESTION RELATING TO THE STATE OF NATURE.
Natural productions are generally formed by degrees. Vegetables are raised from a tender shoot, and animals from an infant state. The latter, being active, extend together their operations and their powers, and have a progress in what they perform, as well as in the faculties they acquire. This progress in the case of man is continued to a greater extent than in that of any other animal. Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilization. Hence the supposed departure of mankind from the state of their nature; hence our conjectures and different opinions of what man must have been in the first age of his being. The poet, the historian, and the moralist frequently allude to this ancient time; and under the emblems of gold, or of iron, represent a condition, and a manner of life, from which mankind have either degenerated, or on which they have greatly improved. On either supposition, the first state of our nature must have borne no resemblance to what men have exhibited in any subsequent period; historical monuments, even of the earliest date, are to be considered as novelties; and the most common establishments of human society are to be classed among the encroachments which fraud, oppression, or a busy invention, have made upon the reign of nature, by which the chief of our grievances or blessings were equally withheld.