2. Clothing is one of the most obvious and useful of human inventions ; and one evidently of the highest an tiquity. The paradoxical Lord of has, indeed, maintained, that the invention of clothes is one of the most pernicious innovations of human perverseness. He decides, that man is by nature intended to live in the open air, like horses and oxen ; a life of all others, he thinks, the most conducive to health. That the contact of the air, and its action upon the body, tends to in vigorate it, is, he thinks, obvious to the senses. For the skin that is exposed to it, has a firmness and elas ticity which no skin covered can have ; the colour of such a skin being the true carnation, very different from the livid white of our clothed skins, which is truly the colour of a white negro, (a diseased and unnatural ani mal,) not of men in the natural state. In the height of his philanthropy, his lordship proposes, as the only re medy for the pernicious fashion of wearing clothes, that they should be made as loose and flowing as possible ; and that we should be much in the open air, as the Greeks were, busied in gymnastic exercises, and making frequent use of friction and anointing. ..'inc.? Meta/:h. vol. ii.
It would be very idle to waste time in endeavouring to refute these paradoxical opinions, of which the ab surdity is sufficiently apparent. Some kind of cover ing for nakedness has been adopted by almost every tribe of men, in all ages of the world, if we except a few of the most barbarous savages. Nor has this always arisen from the necessity of securing the body against the injuries of the air. There arc many climates where such a precaution would be altogether superfluous ; but even the inhabitants of these, from the remotest ages of the world, have been accustomed, from a sense of de cency, to cover sonic parts of their bodies ; while those of colder regions have been necessitated to resort to clothing, on account of the rigour of their atmospnere. \Vhat was thus at first assumed from necessity, or in stinctive modesty, was afterwards continued from choice and the love of ornament. The art of making elegant and costly garments, was, in fact, invented in the mild est climates; and not in those where there was most occasion for a covering to the body.
such vestments as were readiest found, and needed the least preparation. Leaves, herbs, or bulrushes, rudely interwoven, furnished a covering for some nations ; 'and others employed for the same purpose the bark of trees, (Lettres t. 2.) The skins of animals, however, appear to have been the most universally employed for garments, in these earlier ages. But the people of these times knew not at first the art of softening or rendering them flexible, but wore them in the state in which they came from the bodies of the animals. It is evident, that these skins, when hardened and contracted, must have formed a very uncomfortable covering ; so that men would soon apply themselves to find out a method of rendering them ductile. Their first operations, howe ver, would be very simple. The ancient annals of Chi
na inform us, that it was Tchin-fang, one of their first kings, who taught men to prepare the skins of animals, by taking off their hair, with a kind of rollers of wood, (Extr. des Hist. Chin.) The savages of North Ameri ca prepare the skins they use for clothing, by first steep ing them a considerable time in water, then scraping them, and afterwards rubbing and dressing them by main strength. To soften them still further, they be smear them with the fat of some animal, (Maws des Salty. t. 2.) The inhabitants of Iceland make use even of less art. They take the skin while it is warm, and by pulling it backwards arid forwards against their knees, they strip off the wool or hair. After having moistened it with water, they stretch it as much as possible, nail it against a wall, and leave it to dry in the open air. They afterwards take care to rub these 'skins, every four or five days, with the livers of very oily fish, which keeps them soft and pliant, (Hist. Nat. de t. 1.) The inhabitants of Greenland, though a very rude and sa vage people, are somewhat more artificial in their man ner of preparing the skins of deer and sea-dogs, with which they clothe themselves. They rub them first with urine, fat, &c. and then beat them very much with stones, to soften and render them fit for the purposes For which they design them, (Ibid. t. 2.) The art of tanning leather, by means of oak bark, and other vege table astringents, is a comparatively modern invention, and might have been accidentally discovered by wash ing, or steeping hides in water which happened to have an impregnation of this kind.
As mankind became more civilized, they perceived that a better use might be made of the spoils of animals, than converting their skins into garments. Being in the habit of taking off the hair or wool from the hide, they naturally thought of forming out of this a covering for their bodies, which should at once be substantial and warm, and more pliable than furs or leather. The in vention of woollen garments is very ancient. It appears by the book of Genesis, that in the patriarchal ages, the people of Mesopotamia and Palestine were very careful in shearing their sheep, for the sake of the wool. We may suppose, that at first their woollen stuffs more near ly resembled felt than cloth ; being formed merely by uniting and spreading out the wool into an uniform compacted mass, and aiding the natural tendency of its fibres to unite by means of some glutinous substance. Felt, probably of this kind, seems to have been greatly in use among the ancients, (Plin. 1. viii. s. 73.) And several Tartarian tribes, at this day, have no other me thod of forming their wool into garments, (see Pallas's Travels.) The cloths of the South Sea islanders are formed out of the inner bark of trees, somewhat in this manner, being pressed into thin and uniform masses, and rendered tenacious by a glutinous substance, so that they are manulactured much in the same way as our modern paper.