54. Cattle a circulating wealth, even before the cultivation
of the earth.
In times when there was yet a large quantity of uncultivated
land, and which did not belong to any individual, cattle might be
maintained without having a property in land. It is even
probable, that mankind have almost every where began to collect
flocks and herds, and to live on what they produced, before they
employed themselves in the more laborious occupation of
cultivating the ground. It seems that those nations who first
cultivated the earth, are those who found in their country such
sorts of animals as were the most susceptible of being tamed, and
that they have by this been drawn from the wandering and restless
life of hunters and fishers, to the more tranquil enjoyment of
pastoral pursuits. Pastoral life requires a longer residence in
the same place, affords more leisure, more opportunities to study
the difference of lands, to observe the ways of nature in the
productions of such plants as serve for the support of cattle.
Perhaps it is for this reason, that the Asiatic nations have
first cultivated the earth, and that. the inhabitants of America
have remained so long in a savage state.
