There is nothing good in all the universe to the best-designing man, if either through mistake or ignorance he commits the least failing in the use of it; there is no innocence or integrity, that can protect a man from a thousand mischiefs that surround him: on the contrary, every thing is evil, which art and experience have not taught us to turn into a blessing. Therefore how diligent in harvest time is the husbandman, in getting in his crop and sheltering it from rain, without which he could never have enjoyed it! As seasons differ with the climates, experience has taught us differently to make use of them, and in one part of the globe we may see the farmer sow while he is reaping in the other; from all which we may learn how vastly this earth must have been altered since the fall of our first parents. For should we trace man from his beautiful, his divine original, not proud of wisdom acquired by haughty precept or tedious experience, but endued with consummate knowledge the moment he was formed; I mean the state of innocence, in which no animal nor vegetable upon earth, nor mineral under ground was noxious to him, and himself secured from the injuries of the air as well as all other harms, was contented with the necessaries of life, which the globe he inhabited furnished him with, without his assistance. When yet not conscious of guilt, he found himself in every place to be the well obeyed unrivalled lord of all, and unaffected with his greatness, was wholly wrapped up in sublime meditations on the infinity of his Creator, who daily did vouchsafe intelligibly to speak to him, and visit without mischief. In such a golden age, no reason or probability can be alleged, why mankind ever should have raised themselves into such large societies as there have been in the world, as long as we can give any tolerable account of it. Where a man has every thing he desires, and nothing to vex or disturb him, there is nothing can be added to his happiness; and it is impossible to name a trade, art, science, dignity, or employment, that would not be superfluous in such a blessed state. If we pursue this thought, we shall easily perceive that no societies could have sprung from the amiable virtues and loving qualities of man; but, on the contrary, that all of them must have had the origin from his wants, his imperfections, and the variety of his appetites: we shall find likewise, that the more their pride and vanity are displayed, and all their desires enlarged, the more capable they must be of being raised into large and vastly numerous societies.