DIFFIDENCE ever troubles its possessor. It gives him most perplexity when he perceives himself the object of public attention. The orator must feel extremely anxious while he beholds a nu­merous audience, whose concourse, whose coun­tenances, whose very eyes, seem to mark him out as the source of their present amusement.

Besides this inconvenience, common to all public speakers, he, who now addresses you, has peculiar embarrassments. His theme is appropriate: he must speak on the nature of society. This subject is far from being the most brilliant. It does not glitter with the splendour of military atchievement; nor is it shaded by the bays of academic fame. Might the fields of nature and art be ranged, themes could be found, whose native beauty would eclipse the want of embellishment, and lure the approba­tion of an audience, in defiance of every oratorial imperfection.

In addition to this, he cannot feel that ardour of occasion which inspires the orator of some important [Page 4] aera. We this day celebrate the birth of the Philo­logical Society. The duration of this society is but short; the number of its members is yet but small. The anniversary of its institution, therefore, cannot be an event which very extensively interests the world. It is not like the celebration of con­quests and revolutions, where the splendour of tri­umphal heroism arrests the attention of gazing mil­lions; or where the recollection of national emanci­pation hurries the soul into extasy, and drives the loud echo of acclamation round the sky.

Before this day have you listened with silent admi­ration to the oratorial allurements of those, who, on similar occasions, have appeared in this place. After them, to gain applause, to please, or even to pass without censure, must require all the powers of eloquence.

Forgive me, then, my fellow-citizens, if, trem­bling with diffidenee, on such a theme, on such an occasion, and after such predecessors, I attempt to amuse you, by a short delineation of the evils and benefits of social intercourse.

We were nurtured in the bosom of society, and are, therefore, quite incompetent judges of the goods, or ills, of a state of solitude. Let us, how­ever, for a moment, banish hereditary prejudice, and contemplate the goods of solitude, in contrast with the ills of society; we can then better deter­mine why man forsook the solitary state, and mingled with his fellow-man.

The solitary man has entire fruition of natural liberty. He is arbiter of his own actions. He knows no other law than that which the hand of nature has inscribed on the pages of his own mind. Instructed by this, he takes without fear or controul that portion of heaven's munifactions which the wants of his nature require. He draws the fish [Page 5] from any lake; lures the beasts and birds of any grove; plucks the fruits and flowers of any heath, and slakes his thirst at the crystal wave of any glid­ing stream.

This liberty must be dear to man; for the very child bursts into tears at the first approach of con­troul; and men draw their swords, fight, bleed, and die for freedom. Indeed, heaven has vivified the human breast with a certain spirit which spurns at the approach of subjugation, and bids its possessor do homage to no being but his God.

This native liberty, though dear to man, must be immerged in the tide of social intercourse. Man there relinquishes that freedom, which made him lord of his own actions; and learns to obey the dictates of extraneous sovereignty. He exchanges the umpirage of his own controversies, the vindi­cation of his own wrongs, for the tardy decisions of social opinion, and the lingering reparations of public justice. For his share of the undivided earth, he accepts that narrow portion of land, which the laws of his country have deigned to assign him. While a mere citizen of the world, he was no where a stranger, no where a foreigner; but, when he throws off the allegiance of nature, he instantly becomes an alien, an outcast, a barbarian, in every land but his own.

A nearer view of the several kinds of society, will give their peculiar evils a more striking ap­pearance.

The first society, perhaps, was conjugal. This is not entirely exempt from evils. The domestic state is a state of cares and perplexities. These perplexities irritate the mind, and excite conten­tions between the fondest partners. Contentions are sharpened by reiteration; till mutual hatred cor­rodes those hearts, which, before, nurtured the [Page 6] softest passions; and reciprocal reproaches echo from tongues, once invoking the ear of heaven to witness the tenderness of mutual attachment.

Human imperfections soon blast the unlimited confidence of nuptial lovers. We fear to lose the objects of our fondness; and that fear originates suspicions of infidelity. Trifling accidents convert those suspicions into jealousy, and jealousy plants a thorn in every path, infuses a bitter in every cup of life.

But had this passion been forever unknown, and had contention never disturbed domestic happiness, still would mankind have felt enough of conjugal infelicity. It is a sad truth, that the ills attendant on the objects of our love, are felt with a severity equal to our own. Wedlock gives its partners each another self, equally the subject of misfortune; and thus unhappily doubles the sources of human wretchedness. Care for the health, education and prosperity of children, perpetually throw the minds of parents on a rack of anxiety. These cares and attachments, softening and dilating the heart, ex­pose it as a mark broader and more vulnerable to the arrows of calamity.

All these evils are peculiar to the social state. The votary of solitude shall never feel them. He, by accident, meets the counterpart of his nature in some sequestered grove. That God, who gave them hearts attuned to the emotions of sympathy, with a smile of approbation joins their hands. Short is the duration of their social intercourse; too short for evils to disturb the concert of their bliss. Contention and reproach stand afar from their happy grove, and the black fang of jealousy never wounds their tender bosoms. The next day's sun beholds them, separately, roving on their na­tive hills. Their offspring, like his parents, is the [Page 7] offspring of nature. Nourished from the bosom of his mother, and fed on the unsolicited growths of the earth, he soon becomes independent of parental aid; and, like the mountain roe,

Civil society succeeded conjugal. This his giv­en birth to many calamities. Men were no sooner collected, than they felt the consequences of aggre­gation. Power produced ambition and avidity: and these impelled men to war and rapine. United invention supplied them with arms; they swiftly ad­vanced beyond the line of justice; while crimson carnage, and pale devastation, stalked behind them through the land. Slavery and despotism were the effects of conquest. These calamities have been nurtured by those causes which brought them into the world; and every species of society has been tormented by them, since first old Nimrod collect­ed a nation of robbers, and, by the tye of com­mon wickedness, united those whom God had scat­tered over the face of the earth. Yes, from that fatal aera to the present moment, the hand of ty­ranny has shaken the iron sceptre of slavery and oppression over the prostrate nations. Through Afric's sultry realms, over Asia's fertile plains, and back to the icy regions of the north, we now be­hold the forlorn inhabitant the unresisting slave of lawless sovereignty.

Even where tyranny is banished; where the em­pire of laws is established, still oppression cannot be entirely excluded. No code of general laws can equally embrace the multifarious rights of various­ly circumstanced individuals. Some rights must be left undefined, and without defence. This is one source of oppression. Though judges are [Page 8] learned, and attentive, and unprejudiced, yet still will human imbecility often betray them into er­ror. In such cases the unfortunate object of their decisions is entirely ruined. He has lost even the privilege of complaining, that last sad consolation of the wretched. This, then, is another source of oppression. If judges are ignorant, or partial, or perfidious, the weight of a single bribe may turn the scale of justice, and condemn innocence itself to the scaffold. Is not this another source of op­pression? And are not war, slavery and oppression, fearful calamities? Surely they are.

These also are calamities peculiar to the social state. Man in solitude has neither the means, mo­tives, nor disposition, necessary for war. No hos­tile weapons glitter in his hands; no neighbour's field offers a rich harvest to his rapacity; and no ambitious thirst for glory has learned his soul to sigh for martial devastation. He calls no man master. The yoke of vassalage has never bent his neck; he has not felt the scourge of oppression; nor ever trembled at the austere frowns of tyranny. Awed by no menace, controuled by no command, he passes through the world; and, as he goes, he sets his foot on that spot of earth which most de­lights him.

Men had no sooner felt the evils of civil and conjugal society, than they sighed for relief from these calamities. To remedy the inconveniences of these establishments, and to advance themselves nearer to their God, they formed a combination, which they called ecclesiastical. This, however it may have removed the ills of the other kinds of society, has been so managed, as to be productive of many calamities of its own.

The church has preached, that God had promis­ed never to forsake any who stand within the pales [Page 9] of nominal righteousness. A most exuberant li­centiousness has been produced by this one article of faith. Those, who call themselves saints, have dared to transgress with greediness; because their creed had taught them, that they could not transgress beyond the reach of mercy.

A right to sell indulgences has been another ar­ticle of ecclesiastic combination. This, while it has encouraged wickedness, has, by gratifying avidity, produced a most enormous avarice. So great has been this thirst for gain, that the same ecclesiastic, who fulminated damnation at the sin­ner, has commenced auctioneer, and publicly sold absolution for every species of wickedness.

By thus amassing wealth, the church soon be­came powerful. She then shut the doors of ho­nour and emolument; she barred the gates of hea­ven, and unsheathed the dreadful sword of perse­cution, against all who refused to join her family, or dared to withdraw themselves from her com­munion. What though the wretched object of her resentment may have escaped the ax, the rack, and the flames; yet, feared with the dreadful bolt of excommunication, he stands the forlorn outcast of earth and heaven. Human cunning could never have devised a scheme more produc­tive of hypocrisy. For, while admission to the church offers men all they desire; while exclusion from it exposes them to all they fear; they will be constrained to profess a belief in doctrines, which they never believed, and to promise the practice of virtues, which they never intend to practise.

To all these calamities the solitary man is a stranger. No avarice bids him lure a brother into wickedness; and no fell ambition tempts him to hide the movements of his heart behind the curtain of hypocrisy. Though he has no page of scrip­ture [Page 10] but the hook of creation; no object of ador­ation but nature's God; yet is his soul not void of faith, nor uncharmed by the smiles of devotion. He believes his Creator gives the woods their ver­dure, and the birds their songs. He views the sun travelling through the fields of heaven, and calls him the messenger of God. When the stars look from the blue battlements of the sky, and the serene majesty of midnight awes the world into stillness, his soul falls prostrate before that power who bids the wheels of nature roll in silence, and lull his children to repose.

Such are the goods of solitude. Such are the evils of society. If, then, social intercourse has given birth to domestic contention, jealousy, and anxious care; if it has originated war, slavery and oppression; if it has been the source of avarice, licentiousness and hypocrisy, why did man, forsak­ing his native liberty, native pleasures, and native religion, mingle with his fellow man, and expose himself to all these calamities? A solution of this interrogation induces a necessity of contemplat­ing the disposition of man, and his condition in the present state of things, together with a few of the benefits of social intercourse.

Man has an irresistible propensity to associate with his fellow beings. He endures nothing with more pain than he endures solitude. When alone, his heart is sad; and the clouds of melancholy settle on his countenance. This propensity is too violent to be allured by any solitary pleasure, or restrained by the anticipation of any social calamity. To throw himself into the arms of society, man leaves his na­tive solitude, barters his unviolated liberty, and encounters all the hazard, toil and danger of social intercourse. If, then, it be enquired why men associate, each one of us has an answer in his own bosom. It is not because in solitude we are desti­tute, [Page 11] fearful and defenceless; it is because we are social beings: we love to congregate.

More association, then, aside from all consequen­tial benefits, affords man a high degree of gratifica­tion. It makes him happy, by removing the pain of, solitude; it makes him happy, by gratifying a wish, of all the most impatient. If, therefore, man re­ceived no other good from society than merely the gratification of this one propensity, it would more than compensate the loss of solitary good; more than balance the acquisition of every social evil. If, in addition to this, we view the beneficent con­sequences of associating, we shall find they afford all which man can reasonably expect or desire. For his nature forbids him to expect unsullied greatness of mind; nor can his condition afford him complete and inviolable felicity; because reason and folly, virtue and frailty, good and evil, are united, and travel through the world as the companions of man. The best, therefore, which he can do, is to improve his reason, and retrench his folly; to confirm his virtue, and guard against frailty; and to follow that road through life which affords the most benefits, and is infested by the smallest number of inconveniences.

Social intercourse we say is this road; because it produces the highest improvement of man's facul­ties, together with the greatest number of enjoy­ments. How society can do this, is now the sub­ject of enquiry.

Society, by multiplying his wants, calls into ac­tion the industry and invention of man; and thus enables him to produce all the great works of utility and ornament. Men had not long been collected, before they felt the necessity of increasing the pro­ductions of the soil. While a tribe was scattered over a thousand hills, the fruit of those hills supplied them with food; but when the same number drew [Page 12] themselves within the limits of one valley, or pitch­ed their tents on the face of one plain, their nar­row territory left half its inhabitants unsupplied with provisions. This want immediately evinced the necessity of soliciting from the earth, by labour, those productions which she would not yield spon­taneously. Here was the origin of agriculture. Men removed the rock, extirpated the oak, plowed up the plain, and clothed the field in the livery of harvest. All this could not be performed without the aid of machinery.

The mine must be digged, the forge must be rais­ed, the smith must blow the coals and swing the sounding hammer, before the ax, the plowshare and the scythe, could brighten in the hand of labour. The same wants, therefore, which originated agri­culture, originated all those arts necessary for its practice.

Men, enriched by their toil, were not long con­tented with those habitations which subserved their wants, while they roved the woods in a state of indi­gence. They pulled up their tents, demolished their cottages, and erected buildings more durable and elegant. Here architecture had its origin. But architecture, without auxiliary arts, could not have erected the magnificent palace. Without the saw­yer, the carpenter and the statuary, the arched rafter had never left its native hill; the pine's rough trunk would always have inveloped the polished cieling; and the marble column had forever slept in the quarry, nor raised its white capital to heave aloft the gilded dome.

Nations had not advanced thus far in wealth, arts and refinement, without feeling wants which they could not satisfy by the productions of their own climate. They, therefore, began to exchange their own superfluities for the conveniences and elegan­cies [Page 13] of foreigners. To perform this commercial in­tercourse, caravans travelled the desert, and ships sailed over the ocean. These journeys and voy­ages introduced the necessity of new inventions and new labour. The section of an oak, by thunder splintered from its parent trunk, and thrown float­ing down on the bosom of a stream, doubtless first suggested to man the possibility of journeying over the waves. From this rude hint, to form a ship, with all its appendages of cordage and sails, required much toil, much invention, and the united produc­tions of many arts. The brake, the wheel and the loom, must employ the hand of industry; the ax, the saw and the hammer, must be heard to resound in the forest, before the oak of the mountain, hewn into a keel, shall cleave the seas; before the hemp, now green in the field, shall, twisted into cables, hold the ship against the fury of the tempest; or, spread out in sails, collect the winds, and hurry the fleet over the ocean.

After the production of all these wonders in the ways of art, we shall, doubtless, find man advanced to an elevated grade of improvement in his reason, his taste, his passions, and in the disposition of his heart. The perfection of all these depends on his connexion with the sciences; and the sciences sprang from the practice of those arts, which we have traced up to their source among the wants ori­ginated by social intercourse. We had never known the philosophy of animal, vegetable and fossil pro­ductions, had not that knowledge been connected with the gratification of our thirst and hunger. The arcana of mathematics had never been explored, if commerce had not rendered its investigation neces­sary. The first botanist, therefore, doubtless was a farmer; the first chymist, a blacksmith; and the [Page 14] merchant and sailor first discovered and applied arithmetic, astronomy and navigation.

These rude essays opened the avenues of philo­sophy, and disclosed on the mind a region of sci­ence, where reason, by exercising her powers, has acquired almost inconceivable acuteness and ener­gy, in all her operations. By forming society, men produced the necessity of government and laws. These afforded a new field for the exercise of reason; in which the philosophy of morals and jurisprudence offered new subjects of contemplation, which gave additional force and subtlety to the exertions of the mind.

The improvement of taste is so closely connected with the improvement of reason, that what perfects the one, may be considered as the cause of perfec­tion to the other. The same social necessities, therefore, which, originating the sciences, gave rea­son its improvement, have refined taste into an ac­curate standard of decision in all the arts of orna­ment; and by this means furnished the mind with pure sources of exquisite delight. Taste has thus become the unerring director of the architect, paint­er, statuary and poet; and while it has guided the hand of the artist, it has taught the ear to listen with pleasure to the melody of the poem, and learned the eye to gaze with rapture on the teints of the picture, the expressive features of the statue, and the sublime grandeur of the palace.

The improvement of taste and reason refines the passions. Besides this, their refinement is an imme­diate consequence of social intercourse. Society, by producing new relations, gives us new objects of attachment, and raises in the heart new passions, more tender, more generous, and more prolific of delight. In society men commence citizens, neigh­bours, friends, parents, children, brothers; and, [Page 15] united by these cords of affection, their hearts vi­brate in harmonious unison with the emotions of patriotism, friendship, parental, filial and fraternal fondness.

The very exercise of these passions meliorates and improves the disposition of the heart. This im­provement is advanced still farther by gratitude and benevolence. These are grafted on that mutual de­pendence which springs up in society, as its native soil. In society no one is independent. For while a man, in one respect, has the power of granting re­lief, in another, he himself may need assistance. Reason, therefore, directs every man to benevo­lence; because every man knows he may be an ob­ject of it. He is also impelled to it by compassion; because compassion renders him wretched until he grants relief to him who solicits his charity. Grati­tude is a kind of counterpart to benevolence. It is the offspring of that gladness of heart which we feel on the reception of a favour; and which very natu­rally induces a wish to reward our benefactor with reciprocal kindness. Gratitude, therefore, as well as reason and compassion, urges men to benevo­lence, that most exalted of all human virtues, which elevates us to a resemblance of Deity, and qualifies our souls for ineffable fruition.

All these improvements are produced by social intercourse. For without social intercourse, mens wants had never been increased beyond the sponta­neous productions of the earth; without these wants, labour had not been excited, nor invention called into activity; without the exercise of labour and invention, there had been no cultivated fields, no fruitful orchards, no ornamented gardens, no lofty palaces, no hallowed temples, no magnificent cities, no commerce travelling the desert, or sailing the ocean, to pour the wealth of one climate into the [Page 16] bosom of another; without any of all these, there had been no science, no improvement of reason, no perfection of taste, no refinement of passions, no benevolence of heart; but the world, to this mo­ment, had remained an undivided wilderness; and man, solitary man, had roamed on the desolate mountains, with no other social amusement than howling at the stillness of midnight, and listening to the dismal responses of echo.

If, therefore, all these improvements of mind, all these advancements in the arts of utility and orna­ment, are produced by social intercourse, may we not say, that social intercourse offers men the great­est number of enjoyments? Do we derive no felicity from the fine arts, from knowledge, and from re­finement of feelings? Is no pleasure felt while we listen to the strains of music; while we read the ma­jestic numbers of poetry, or while we gaze on the landscape, ornamented by the hand of cultivation? Who will say there are no pleasures in knowledge? Surely not he who has felt the influence of one ray of that profusion of science which beams on the mind of the philosopher, who has realized the force of moral truth, and enjoyed the luxury of mathe­matic demonstration. Do we derive no felicity from refined feelings? Is there no delight in sociability, no charm in friendship, no rapture in love? Is there no blessedness in beneficence, when, by a recipro­cation of benefactions, the heart is warmed with gratitude, and dilated with benevolence?

What solitary pleasures can compare with these? Can the gross fruition of the anchorite equal the re­fined felicity of conjugal intercourse? Can the wild savageness of natural liberty afford a delight like the sober undisturbed satisfaction of civil freedom? Can the faith and devotion of the solitary, who "sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind," swell the [Page 17] soul with such exalted beatitude as glows in the bosom of the Christian, who, illumined by the full blaze of revelation, looks beyond the mountain, be­yond the lurid cloud, and, raptured, beholds a God of boundless mercy seated on the circuit of the heavens? No; even the happiness of a solitary angel must sink below the reach of computation, when once contrasted with the felicity of those on earth, who stand within the embrace of social intercourse, and feel their souls enlarged by knowledge, refined by reason, illumined by revelation, warmed by de­votion, and united by the ties of friendship and love.