stone to so great a distance?
Had he a ladder, would he run so nimbly up a tree? Had he a horse,
would he with such swiftness shoot along the plain? Give civilized man
but time to gather about him all his machines, and no doubt he will be
an overmatch for the savage: but if you have a mind to see a contest
still more unequal, place them naked and unarmed one opposite to the
other; and you will soon discover the advantage there is in
perpetually having all our forces at our disposal, in being constantly
prepared against all events, and in always carrying ourselves, as it
were, whole and entire about us.

Hobbes would have it that man is naturally void of fear, and always
intent upon attacking and fighting. An illustrious philosopher thinks
on the contrary, and Cumberland and Puffendorff likewise affirm it,
that nothing is more fearful than man in a state of nature, that he is
always in a tremble, and ready to fly at the first motion he
perceives, at the first noise that strikes his ears. This, indeed, may
be very true in regard to objects with which he is not acquainted; and
I make no doubt of his being terrified at every new sight that
presents itself, as often as he cannot distinguish the physical good
and evil which he may expect from it, nor compare his forces with the
dangers he has to encounter; circumstances that seldom occur in a
state of nature, where all things proceed in so uniform a manner, and
the face of the earth is not liable to those sudden and continual
changes occasioned in it by the passions and inconstancies of
collected bodies. But savage man living among other animals without
any society or fixed habitation, and finding himself early under a
necessity of measuring his strength with theirs, soon makes a
comparison between both, and finding that he surpasses them more in
address, than they surpass him in strength, he learns not to be any
longer in dread of them. Turn out a bear or a wolf against a sturdy,
active, resolute savage, (and this they all are,) provided with stones
and a good stick; and you will soon find that the danger is at least
equal on both sides, and that after several trials of this kind, wild
beasts, who are not fond of attacking each other, will not be very
fond of attacking man, whom they have found every whit as wild as
themselves. As to animals who have really more strength than man has
address, he is, in regard to them, what other weaker species are, who
find means to subsis