512 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



is the cafe, I have no doubt but the wife and beneficent Author of 

 Nature has beftowed it. Accordingly, both birds and beafts are ob- 

 ferved to have a Foreknowledge of Tempefts and fudden and vio- 

 lent changes of the weather, much beyond any human Forefight. 

 And I am well aflured, that, in countries where the rivers overflow 

 annually, the natives know certainly how far the inundation is to 

 come up into the couutrj, by the birds building their nefts, and take 

 their meafurcs accordingly, without ever being deceived or difap- 

 pointed. The fhip-dog I mentioned fome time ago, when the fhip 

 was in very great hazard in a ftorm upon a lee fhore, forefaw, as I 

 was told by the fame gentleman, who was an eye-witnefs of the 

 thing, a prodigious wave, that fwept away every thing upon deck, 

 and, among other things, a box in which the dog lived. Some 

 time before the wave came, he went down to the cabbin, where 

 he was never feen before, which frightened the mafter very much : 

 But, as foon as the danger was over, he came again upon deck, 

 ihaking his tail, and licking the hands of all his friends ; which was 

 as much as telling them, that they might be of good chear, for the 

 danger was over. 



Virgil has obferved the prefcience that the birds have of the wea- 

 ther; and I agree with him, that it is no proof of any extraordinary 

 Divinity in their Minds, or that it is revealed to them by any Supe- 

 rior Mind. 



Hand equidem credo, quia Jit divinitus illis _ 

 Ingenium, aut rerumfato prudent ia rnajor *. 



But I cannot agree to his explanation of the phaenomenon, ac- 

 cording to the principles of his Epicurean philofophy, from Material 



Caufes, 



• Gcorgic. i. v. 4(5. 



