Chap. I. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 5] 



fays Agatharchicles, informed hiinfelf moft accurately of every 

 thing. The fad, therefore, related concerning this ftrange peo- 

 ple, fo attefted, muft be believed, unlefs we are refolvcd to rejeO: 

 all antient hiftory, and to believe nothing but what is to be feen in 

 Gur own times. The circumftance of their not fpeaking, will, I know, 

 appear extraordinary, if not quite incredible, to thofe who believe 

 Language to be natural to Man. But, for my part, I fhould have 

 thought it mofl extraordinary, and, indeed, abfolutely incredible, 

 if men, who had the practice of no art but that rude unartificial way 

 of fifhing, {hould have invented an art of fo much difficulty as arti- 

 culation. If, therefore, they had had the ufe of fpeech, it appears 

 to me evident that thev muft have learned it from fom.e other nation. 

 But with any other nation it does not appear that they had the leaft 

 intercourfe. Their ftupidity and infenfibility, with their entire ig- 

 norance of the pulchrum and honejlum in anions and fentiments, is 

 not, I think, at all extraordinary, but, on the contrary, the necef- 

 fary confequence of the ftate of human nature in which they lived. 

 But there is one circumftance concerning them, which appears, at 

 firft fight, very extraordinary. It is this, that they lived entirely 

 without drinking, and had not fo much as an idea of that kind of 

 nourifhment : But this Agatharchides, and after him Diodorus *, 

 have explained, by telling us that they ate their fifh almcft quite raw. 

 Now, we all know that fifh is a watry diet, and therefore very light ; 

 and I have no doubt, that, if eaten raw, with the blood and other fluids 

 in them not exhaled by fire, tliey will fupply the place of drink. 

 Even flefh, which is a much more folid food, if it be eaten raw and 

 new killed, will make drink unneceflary, as is evident from the in- 

 ftance above mentioned, of MrHearne f, who lived for months to- 

 gether upon raw flefli, without the ufe of water. — And, if the 

 reader defire further proof, of how little liquid is fufficient for a 

 man, he may have it without going out of Britain ; for there is a 

 miller in Effex, who lives entirely upon pudding made of flour of 



G 2 fca- 



* Agath. p. 49. Diodorus, p. ic8. 



t Tage 35. 



