Chap. I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 29 



As to cloaths, we are aflured, from the beft authority, that time 

 was when Man lived without cloaths, as well as houfes : Or, if they 

 fhould not be convinced by this authority, (which is likely to be the 

 cafe), nor fhould not believe that the Oran Outan is a Man, or, 

 perhaps, that he exifts, yet they can hardly refufe credit to our late 

 travellers in the South Sea, who tell us, that the New Hollanders, in 

 the latitude of 44. where it is colder than in this country, are abfo- 

 lutely naked, tho' they be not covered with hair as the Oran Outan is. 

 Upon their credit, I think, we may give faith to Herodian and Dion 

 Caflius *, when they relate a fad: of their own times, that the Moe- 

 atae, the inhabitants of the fouthern parts of Scotland, were abfolutely 

 naked. The Patagonians, and inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, one 

 of the coldeft climates in the world, have no cloathing but loofe 

 fkins tacked about their fhoulders, which wc cannot doubt but they 



might want. 



The 



* Thefe two hiftorians were contemporary with one another, and with Severus 

 the Emperor, who carried his arms to the utmofl extremity of the ifland. Dion 

 Caflius was a man of confular dignity, and, if I am not miftaken, was employed by 

 the Emperor as his Secretary, and, for any thing I know, was with him in Britain. 

 Herodian, too, as he tells us in the beginning of his hiftory, was employed in public 

 offices, and fays, that he writes of nothing but what he had feen, or of which he had 

 certain information. They tell fo many other particulars of the diet, manner of 

 life, and way of fighting, of thofe inhabitants of North Britain, as fhow that the 

 Romans muft have been very well acquainted with them ; and, if they had been 

 much lefs fo, they muft have known with great certainty whether they were cloathed 

 or not. The Britons, whom Julius Caefar faw, were the bouthern Britons, neareil 

 to the continent of Gaul. And I believe there is no doubt but that they were clo- 

 thed as the Gauls were, or as the Belgae, of whom fome of thofe Southern Britons 

 were colonies. — ' here are, however, men in this country, who, living like buggs 

 themfelves, will not believe, notwithftanding thefe authorities, that it is poflibJe that 

 men ever lived naked in fo rude a climate ; and they have, p.s is very common, fome 

 miferablc fyftem of philofophy to fupport their own practice, againft fads fo well at- 

 tefted. 



