The Poets in their fables,
most of which, however extravagant they may seem, had their origin in
truth, speak the same language. Some of these represent the first condition
of man by the figure of the golden, and his subsequent degeneracy and
subjection to suffering by that of the silver, and afterwards of the iron,
age. Others tell us that the first female was made of clay; that she was
called Pandora, because every necessary gift, qualification, or endowment,
was given to her by the Gods, but that she received from Jupiter at the
same time, a box, from which, when opened, a multitude of disorders sprung,
and that these spread themselves immediately afterwards among all of the
human race. Thus it appears, whatever authorities we consult, that those
which may be termed the evils of life existed in the earliest times. And
what does subsequent history, combined with our own experience, tell us,
but that these have been continued, or that they have come down, in
different degrees, through successive generations of men, in all the known
countries of the universe, to the present day?
But though the inequality visible in the different conditions of life, and
the passions interwoven into our nature, (both which have been allotted to
us for wise purposes, and without which we could not easily afford a proof
of the existence of that which is denominated virtue,) have a tendency to
produce vice and wretchedness among us, yet we see in this our constitution
what may operate partially as preventives and correctives of them.
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