78 A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



%vlthout reafon that the Greeks and Romans made the charaderiftic 

 of a well exercifed man, and a body in good order, the being able 

 to endure the fun and duft. Without this, the antient Greeks would 

 not only have been unfit for war, but they could not have enjoyed 

 their national pleafures of the Games, and particularly the Olym- 

 pic, which were celebrated in the middle of fummer, and where 

 the croud was fo prodigloufly great, and confequently the heat and 

 duft, that I do not believe there is a modern man in Europe that" 

 could have borne to be a fpedlator there, much lefs to have been a 

 perform.er. 



I come now to fpcak of what is to be the principal fubjecl of this 

 chapter. The nature of the animal, Man, in his original ftate, and 

 his manner of life in • that ftate ; which, being according to Nature 

 and not opinion, we are fure, is the beft pofTible, at leaft with re- 

 fpe<5l to the Body and Animal Life, of which only we are now 

 fpeaking. And, firft, we are to inquire whether Man be by nature 

 deftined to live above ground and in the open air, like horfes 

 and oxen, or under ground and in holes, like foxes and rabbits, 

 (not to mention fmaller Animals), fo as not to come abroad, except 

 to feed, or for fome other neceflary purpofe. And I fay that Men, 

 in this rcfped, arc of the nature of horfes and cattle. 



As to them, it is well known that they thrive beft in the 

 fields, and that the winter running is better for them than the fum- 

 mer, particularly for horfes. In the houfe, horfes are liable to ma- 

 ny difeafes ; but it hardly has been known that a horfe at grafs has 

 contracted any ailment ; but, on the contrary, they are commonly 

 cured, by running out, of difeafes they have contracted in the houfe. 

 And, in general, I do not know that any of thefe peftilential difea- 

 fes, which make fuch dreadful havock among men and other hou- 

 fed animals, have ever affeded the wild. Virgil, indeed, fays * 

 that the plague among the cattle of the Alps deftroyed alfo the 



wild 



* Gcorgic. Lib. iii. Verfe 478. 



