16. Thus, such improved endowments as we have now spoken of, increased power over materials, and increased means of motion and communication, arising from improved mechanism, do little, and we may say, nothing, to satisfy our idea of a more excellent condition than that of man. For such extensions of man's present powers are consistent with the absence of all intellectual and moral improvement. Men might be able to dart from place to place, and even from planet to planet, and from star to star, on wings, such as we ascribe to angels in our imagination: they might be able to make the elements obey them at a beck; and yet they might not be better, nor even wiser, than they are. It is not found generally, that the improvement of machinery, and of means of locomotion, among men, produces an improvement in morality, nor even an improvement in intelligence, except as to particular points. We must therefore look somewhat further, in order to find possible characters, which may enable us to imagine a creature more excellent than man. 17. Among the distinctions which elevate man above brutes, there is one which we have not mentioned, but which is really one of the most eminent. We mean, his faculty and habit of forming himself into Societies, united by laws and language for some common object, the furtherance of which requires such union. The most general and primary kind of such societies, is that Civil Society which is bound together by Law and Government, and which secures to men the Rights of property, person, family, external peace, and the like. That this kind of society may be conceived, as taking a more excellent character than it now possesses, we can easily see: for not only does it often very imperfectly attain its direct object, the preservation of Rights, but it becomes the means and source of wrong. Not only does it often fail to secure peace with strangers, but it acts as if its main object were to enable men to make wars with strangers. If we were to conceive a Universal and Perpetual Peace to be established among the nations of the earth; (for instance by some general agreement for that purpose;) and if we were to suppose, further, that those nations should employ all their powers and means in fully unfolding the intellectual and moral capacities of their members, by early education, constant teaching, and ready help in all ways; we might then, perhaps, look forwards to a state of the earth in which it should be inhabited, not indeed by a being exalted above Man, but by Man exalted above himself as he now is.