* * * * *
AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION.
Man is generally represented as an animal formed for, and delighted
in, society; in this state alone, it is said, his various talents can
be exerted, his numberless necessities relieved, the dangers he is
exposed to can be avoided, and many of the pleasures he eagerly
affects enjoyed. If these assertions be, as I think they are,
undoubtedly and obviously certain, those few who have denied man to be
a social animal have left us these two solutions of their conduct;
either that there are men as bold in denial as can be found in
assertion--and as Cicero says there is no absurdity which some
philosopher or other hath not asserted, so we may say there is no
truth so glaring that some have not denied it;--or else that these
rejectors of society borrow all their information from their own
savage dispositions, and are, indeed, themselves, the only exceptions
to the above general rule.
But to leave such persons to those who have thought them more worthy
of an answer; there are others who are so seemingly fond of this
social state, that they are understood absolutely to confine it to
their own species; and entirely excluding the tamer and gentler, the
herding and flocking parts of the creation, from all benefits of it,
to set up this as one grand general distinction between the human and
the brute species.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213