[ 19° ] 



Neither fhould he admit that there exifted any ftate of nature 

 which he had not himfelf obferved, and which was contradifled 

 by the general and uniform experience of the kingdom of Siam. 

 Mr. Hume indeed fays, it was not contrary to his experience, but 

 merely not conformable to it ;* but this non-conformity is in fad 

 a contrariety, fince liquidity and folidity are contrary ftates. Nay, 

 according to Mr. Hume's mode of reafoning in the preceding para- 

 graph, it was even a contradiction ; for bis experience informed 

 him that water was always liquid, and the fadl related to bhn was 

 that water •wa.sfometi'mes folid (no allowance being made for difFe- 

 xent climates) : neither fhould he believe that there exifted, in any 

 feafon, a degree of cold which he had never experienced. But in 

 reality this Indian Prince reafoned very abfurdly ; for he muft have 

 known that lead, Clver and gold, or at leaft that pitch, wax and 

 tallow are rendered liquid by a certain degree of heat and become 

 folid when cooled : by analogy he fhould therefore conclude, that 

 water might fimilarly be affeded by greater degrees of cold ; and 

 that it was fo, he fhould have admitted on proper teftimony, as all 

 Europe did upon Gmelin's teftimony, that mercury was frozen in 

 Siberia, long before the illuftrious Cavendifh had repeated the 

 experiment in England. He fhould alfo have known that ice 

 was not unfrequent in the northern parts of Ava and the moun- 

 tains of Cochinchina, kingdoms bordering on Siam. 



Mr. 



* Locke alfo calls it contrary : book iv. chap. 15, § 5. 



