Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/25

 ple, be taught to acquiesce in those defects which it is impossible to prevent; and reject all faulty innovations tho' offered under the specious titles of improvement.

early ages when man was employed in acquiring necessary subsistance, or in defending his acquisitions, when without laws or society he led a precarious life, while even the savage rivalled him in the dominion of the forest; in such times of fatigue and darkness we must not look for the origin of arts or learning, which are the offspring of security, opulence and ease. When experience taught the advantages of society, when native freedom was exchanged for social security, when man began to feel the benefit of laws, and the mind had leisure for the contemplation of nature and itself, then, probably, the sciences might have been culti-