THE Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꭲ Ꮪ OF LIFE. LETTER I. INTRODUCTORY. MY DEAR BOY,-Though you are now a stout active fellow, and can work in your garden, and do a variety of things besides playing, yet I think you must have some recollection of the time when you were a helpless little infant, fit for nothing but to be fed and dressed by your nurse. You must probably have observed, too, that the very young animals of other kinds are, for the most part, unable to shift for themselves, and would soon perish without the care of their parents. Puppies and kittens, you know, are blind when they B come into the world, and their limbs are so weak, that they can but just crawl about. Unfledged birds are only fit to lie in the nest, and open their mouths when the old ones bring them food. But all these animals, when grown to a tolerable size, are able to get their living in the way that nature intended for them; and no one ever knew them die of hunger or cold for want of sufficient skill to procure themselves provision or shelter, where they were to be had. But it is not so with man. He not only comes into the world the most feeble and naked of all young creatures, but, after he has acquired the proper use of his limbs and senses, he is very unequal to the task of providing himself with necessaries, unless taught by those who have already enjoyed the benefit of experience. And even if he can thus just manage to keep himself alive, it will often take several generations, in a new country, before he finds out what can best contribute to his comfort and convenience. In many climates there are no fruits or other vegetable products growing wild which will serve him for wholesome food, at least with out some preparation. He can seldom overtake quadrupeds or birds, or catch fish, by his mere bodily powers, unaided by some contrivance. He never acquires from nature, as all other creatures do, a covering for his body sufficient to protect him from the impressions of cold and heat; and caves and woods afford him but an imperfect shelter against the inclemencies of the seasons. The use of fire, which is in many ways so necessary to him, is not taught him by instinct, but must have been learned by observation or by accident; and the simplest tools have to be invented, and the properties of all the substances which surround him to be discovered by labour, and thought, and repeated experiments. For everything valuable, therefore, man is indebted to art, and the first use of his reason is to suggest to him such contrivances as are most essential to his welfare. It is these primitive devices which I mean to make the subject of a set of letters to you. For although, in the state of society in which we live, persons of the superior classes are seldom called upon to exercise the common arts |