servations. The conformities, which in time
he might discover between them, and between himself and his female,
made him judge of those he did not perceive; and seeing that they all
behaved as himself would have done in similar circumstances, he
concluded that their manner of thinking and willing was quite
conformable to his own; and this important truth, when once engraved
deeply on his mind, made him follow, by a presentiment as sure as any
logic, and withal much quicker, the best rules of conduct, which for
the sake of his own safety and advantage it was proper he should
observe towards them.

Instructed by experience that the love of happiness is the sole
principle of all human actions, he found himself in a condition to
distinguish the few cases, in which common interest might authorize
him to build upon the assistance of his fellows, and those still
fewer, in which a competition of interests might justly render it
suspected. In the first case he united with them in the same flock, or
at most by some kind of free association which obliged none of its
members, and lasted no longer than the transitory necessity that had
given birth to it. In the second case every one aimed at his own
private advantage, either by open force if he found himself strong
enough, or by cunning and address if he thought himself too weak to
use violence.

Such was the manner in which men might have insensibly acquired some
gross idea of their mutual engagements and the advantage of fulfilling
them, but this only as far as their present and sensible interest
required; for as to foresight they were utter strangers to it, and far
from troubling their heads about a distant futurity, they scarce
thought of the day following. Was a deer to be taken? Every one saw
that to succeed he must faithfully stand to his post; but suppose a
hare to have slipped by within reach of any one of them, it is not to
be doubted but he pursued it without scruple, and when he had seized
his prey never reproached himself with having made his companions miss
theirs.

We may easily conceive that such an intercourse scarce required a more
refined language than that of crows and monkeys, which flock together
almost in the same manner. Inarticulate exclamations, a great many
gestures, and some imitative sounds, must have been for a long time
the universal language of mankind, and by joining to these in every
country some articulate and conventional sounds, of which, as