88 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



by putting on a clean fhirt ; but they might as well think to make 

 a dung-hill clean, by throwing a white cloth over it. The bath I 

 would recommend is the cold bath, which will ferve the double 

 purpole of cleaning and of bracing. The warm bath may be ufed 

 fometimes, for greater cleannefs, as warm water cleanfes better than 

 cold : But I condemn the conftant ufe of it, unlefs a man were to 

 live the life of an Athlete ; for then he would need it, to foften and 

 relax that rigidity which great labour produces ; but wc, that live 

 indolently and effeminately, need more to be braced than relaxed. 

 The Greeks and Romans, when they exercifed every day in the 

 Palaeftra, were, I am perfuaded, the better for the conftant ufe of 

 it : But, when they became luxurious and effeminate, they were as 

 certainly the worfe for it ; for they ufed it then, not for refrefhment 

 after toil, but for mere pleafure ; and it was then properly compared 

 to indulgence in wine or women, according to the diftich. 



Balnea, Vina, Venia, confumunt corpora nojlra ; 

 Sed 'uitam faciunt Balnea, Vina, Venus, 



But ihefe, as I have obferved, are but partial remedies ; and Na- 

 ture never prompts an animal to do any thing that requires a re- 

 medy, 



drunk, men, vomen, and children, very frequendy, (our author fays, once a week,) 

 with a flrong liquor, which they have unhappily learned to make of an herb they 

 call Manicck; Vol. ii. of Pere Tertre's hiftory of thefe iflands, p. 38<5. He fays alfo, 

 that the great pox is common among them in its highefl degree of malignity, and 

 is tranfmiued, from the parents to the children, as they have no radical cure 

 for it, but only palliatives; p. 409 And Father Raymond Breton, in his Didio- 

 nary of the language of this people, tells us that they are liable to feveral difeafes, 

 proceeding from their unwholefome diet upon certain kinds of coarfe fifli ; p. 340. 

 -41. Kotwiihaanding all which, Pere Tertre tells us, that they live very long, 

 to the r.ge of 100, and upwards ; and their women bear children at the age of 

 ^o', p. \-]9- ili"^^ I'^rc Raymond, in the above quoted work, p. 3S3. afcribes 

 chiefly to their bathing in the river three rimes every d.y. 



