It was in a great degree from this manner of life that mankind became scattered in the earliest times over the whole globe.  But their peaceful occupations did not contribute so much to that end as their wars, which were not the less frequent and violent because the people were few, and the interests for which they contended of but small importance.  Ancient history has furnished us with many instances of whole nations, expelled by invasion, falling in upon others, which they have entirely overwhelmed,—­more irresistible in their defeat and ruin than in their fullest prosperity.  The rights of war were then exercised with great inhumanity.  A cruel death, or a servitude scarcely less cruel, was the certain fate of all conquered people; the terror of which hurried men from habitations to which they were but little attached, to seek security and repose under any climate that, however in other respects undesirable, might afford them refuge from the fury of their enemies.  Thus the bleak and barren regions of the North, not being peopled by choice, were peopled as early, in all probability, as many of the milder and more inviting climates of the Southern world; and thus, by a wonderful disposition of the Divine Providence, a life of hunting, which does not contribute to increase, and war, which is the great instrument in the destruction of men, were the two principal causes of their being spread so early and so universally over the whole earth.  From what is very commonly known of the state of North America, it need not be said how often and to what distance several of the nations on that continent are used to migrate, who, though thinly scattered, occupy an immense extent of country.  Nor are the causes of it less obvious,—­their hunting life, and their inhuman wars.

Such migrations, sometimes by choice, more frequently from necessity, were common in the ancient world.  Frequent necessities introduced a fashion which subsisted after the original causes.  For how could it happen, but from some universally established public prejudice, which always overrules and stifles the private sense of men, that a whole nation should deliberately think it a wise measure to quit their country in a body, that they might obtain in a foreign land a settlement which must wholly depend upon the chance of war?  Yet this resolution was taken and actually pursued by the entire nation of the Helvetii, as it is minutely related by Caesar.  The method of reasoning which led them to it must appear to us at this day utterly inconceivable.  They were far from being compelled to this extraordinary migration by any want of subsistence at home; for it appears that they raised, without difficulty, as much corn in one year as supported them for two; they could not complain of the barrenness of such a soil.

This spirit of migration, which grew out of the ancient manners and necessities, and sometimes operated like a blind instinct, such as actuates birds of passage, is very sufficient to account for the early habitation of the remotest parts of the earth, and in some sort also justifies that claim which has been so fondly made by almost all nations to great antiquity.