in their wild uncultivated state, that by study and
reflection alone, they should ever be able to attain this knowledge.
Most fortunately, therefore, there is conjoined to those necessities,
whose remedies are remote and obscure, another necessity, which having a
present and more obvious remedy, may justly be regarded as the first
and original principle of human society. This necessity is no other than
that natural appetite betwixt the sexes, which unites them together, and
preserves their union, till a new tye takes place in their concern for
their common offspring. This new concern becomes also a principle of
union betwixt the parents and offspring, and forms a more numerous
society; where the parents govern by the advantage of their superior
strength and wisdom, and at the same time are restrained in the exercise
of their authority by that natural affection, which they bear their
children. In a little time, custom and habit operating on the tender
minds of the children, makes them sensible of the advantages, which they
may reap from society, as well as fashions them by degrees for it, by
rubbing off those rough corners and untoward affections, which prevent
their coalition.

For it must be confest, that however the circumstances of human nature
may render an union necessary, and however those passions of lust and
natural affection may seem to render it unavoidable; yet there are other
particulars in our natural temper, and in our outward circumstances,
which are very incommodious, and are even contrary to the requisite
conjunction. Among the former, we may justly esteem our selfishness to
be the most considerable. I am sensible, that generally speaking, the
representations of this quality have been carried much too far; and that
the descriptions, which certain philosophers delight so much to form
of mankind in this particular, are as wide of nature as any accounts
of monsters, which we meet with in fables and romances. So far from
thinking, that men have no affection for any thing beyond themselves,
I am of opinion, that though it be rare to meet with one, who loves any
single person better than himself; yet it is as rare to meet with one,
in whom all the kind affections, taken together, do not overbalance all
the selfish. Consult common experience: Do you not see, that though
the whole expence of the family be generally under the direction of the
master of it, yet there are few that do not bestow the largest part of