Curious thoughts on the history of man; chiefly abridged or selected from the celebrated works of Lord Kaimes, Lord Monboddo, Dr. Dunbar, and the immortal Montesquieu ... Designed to promote a spirit of enquiry in the British youth of both sexes ... / By the Rev. John Adams.

  • Adams, John, 1750?-1814.
Date:
1789
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Curious thoughts on the history of man; chiefly abridged or selected from the celebrated works of Lord Kaimes, Lord Monboddo, Dr. Dunbar, and the immortal Montesquieu ... Designed to promote a spirit of enquiry in the British youth of both sexes ... / By the Rev. John Adams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    confider, that man is by nature weaker, and not lo well armed, as many of the beafts of prey. The Author of nature, indeed, endued man with fu~ perior fagacity. That however would not have availed him in the fmgle date ; but it directed him to alTociate himfelf with others of the fame fpecies, —■to a& in concert with them,—in fhort, to in- flitute civil fociety, to invent arts and fciences, and to acquire dominion over animals much ftronger and fiercer than himfelf. The face of the earth he has changed by his art and induftry, and even the ele- ments and powers of nature he has made fubfervient to his purpofes. tf Audax omnia perpeti “ Gens humana. fC Expertus vacuum Daedalus aera “ Pennis non homini dads.* “ Perrupit Acheronta Herculeus labor. Nil mortalibus arduum, Hor, * This (iory of Daedalus is no doubt a poetical fiction, though, like other poetical fidtions, it has a foundation in hiftorical truth ; for the fa£t appears to have been, that Daedalus made his efcape from Crete in a fwift-failing veflel of his own invention. But it is not a fiction, that Bifhop Wilkins, a moll ingenious as well as learned man, did try to invent an art of fiying, and was fo con- fident of his fuccefs, that he faid he did not doubt but that he fhould hear men calling for their wings, as they do now for their costs. B 4 In