Chap. ir. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 79 



wild animals. But I am hardly dilpofed to take the word of a fingle 

 poet for fiich a fact, when we know that the greateft plagues of 

 which there is any record, fuch as the plague in Athens, of which 

 Thucydides has given us fo accurate an account, the plague in the 

 time of Juftinian the Emperor, of which we have likewife an accu- 

 rate account from a cotemporary hiflorian, JProcopius, who fays it 

 deftroyed one-half of the human fpecies, and the famous plague in 

 Naples, in 1656 *, did not affed the wild animals. 



As to horfes and cattle, thofe of them, that have been bred with- 

 out doors, cannot be perfuaded, without much difficulty, to come 

 under a roof; and fuch horfes as have been brought up in the houfe, 

 and kept there for years, if they are let run out, though their ftable 

 be always kept open, they will only feed there, and, even in the 

 ftormieft nights, will go out to fleep in the fields. This is a fad: I 

 can atteft ; and there is another, of which I was an eye-witnefs, that 

 will appeal ftill more extraordinary. A parcel of horfes that I had 

 running out, in a moft tempeftous ^ay of wind and rain, came to 

 the fhed, but did not go in, only put in their heads, and ftood with 

 their bodies expofed to the ftorm ; and this not one of them only 

 did, but all, to the number of fix or feven. And the reafon of what 

 appears fo flrange is, that wind and rain affed the ears of a horfe 

 very much, and that way difturb him * : But that the air, even tho' 

 agitated by wind, and accompanied by rain, does good to his body, 

 we muft believe, unlefs w^e fuppofe that inftindt, or, in other words, 

 God and Nature, can err. Now, even thofe, who account for every 

 thing by Matter and Mechanifm, will hardly pretend that there is 

 fuch an effential difference betwixt the ftrudure and anatomy of a 

 man and a horfe, as to make that air, which is fo falutary to a horfe, 

 pernicious to a man. 



Bur 



* See Gionani's Hiftory of Naples, p. 778. Vol. U. 



