its but, in every other refpect, the fame oeconomy obtains among them. Where the rams happen to be few in proportion to the other sheep, they fometimes divide the flock among them, inftead of fighting for precedence. Five or fix fcore of sheep, two of them rams, were purchased a few years ago by the author of this work. The two rams divided the flock between them. The two flocks paftured in common; being fhut up in one inclofure: but they had different spots for reft during night; nor was it known that a fheep ever deferted party, or even changed its refting-place. In the two fpecies last mentioned, I find not that there is any notion of punishment; nor does it appear to be necessary : the leader pretends to nothing but precedence, which is never difputed. Every fpecies of animals have a few notes by which the individuals communicate their defires and wants to each other. If a cow or a calf give the voice of diftress, every beaft of the kind runs to give help. If a ftranger utter the voice of defiance, many advance for battle. If he yield, he obtains a certain rank in the herd. If a colony of rooks be fuffered to make a fettlement in a grove of trees, it is difficult to diflodge them. But, if once diflodged, they never return, at leaft for many years; and yet numbers must have been procreated after banishment. How is this otherwife to be accounted for, but that rooks have fome faculty of conveying inftruction to their young? In fome animals, love of liberty is the ruling paffion: fome are easily trained, and fubmit readily without oppofition. Examples of the latter are common of the former take the following inftance. A brood of ftonechatters taken from the neft were inclofed in a cage. The door was left open to give admiffion to the mother, and then was shut upon her. After many attempts, finding it impoffible to get free, the first put her young to death, and then dafhed out her own brains on the fide of the cage. I blush to prefent thefe imperfect hints, the fruit of cafual obfervation, not of intentional inquiry: but I am fond to blow the trumpet, in order to raise curiosity in others: if the fubject be prosecuted by men of tafte and inquiry, many final causes, I am perfuaded, will be difcovered, tending more and more to dif play play the wisdom and goodness of Providence. But what at prefent I have chiefly in view, is to obferve, that government among brute animals, however fithple, appears to be perfect in its kind; and adapted with great propriety to their nature. Factions in the ftate are unknown: no enmity between individuals, no treachery, no deceit, nor any other of thofe horrid vices that torment the human race. word, they appear to be perfectly well qualified for that kind of fociety to which they are prompted by their nature, and well fitted for being happy in it. In a Storing up the foregoing obfervations. till there be occafion for them, we proceed to the focial nature of man. That men are endued with an appetite for fociety, will be vouched by the concurring teftimony of all men, each vouching for himfelf. There is accordingly no inftance of people living in a folitary ftate, where the appetite is not obftructed by fome potent obftacle. The inhabitants of that part of New Holland which Dampier faw, live in fociety, though lefs advanced above brutes than any other known favages; and fo intimate is their fociety, that they gather their food and eat in common. The in habitants of the Canary Islands lived in the fame manner, when firft feen by Europeans, which was in the fourteenth century; and the favages mentioned by Condamine, drawn by a Jefuit from the woods. to fettle on the banks of the Oroonoko, muft originally have been united in fome kind of fociety, as they had a common language. In a word, that man hath an appetite for food, is not more certain, than that he hath an appetite for fociety. And here I have occafion to apply one of the obfervations made above. Abstracting altogether from the pleafure we have in fociety, fimilar to what we have in eating, evident it is, that to no animal is fociety more neceffary than to man, whether for food or for defence. In fociety, he is chief of the terreftrial creation; in a folitary ftate, the moft helpless and forlorn. Thus, the first question fuggefted above, viz. To what end was a focial appetite bestowed on man, has received an anfwer, which I flatter myfelf will be fatisfactory. The next queftion,is, Whether the appetite embrace the whole fpecies, or be limited, as among other animals, to a foci ety ety of moderate extent. That the appe tite is limited, will be evident from history. Ζ and 1 |