90 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



among the Brutes. The Fox, or Wild Dog*, has the fame averfion 

 to fire, that other wild animals have ; but we all know how fond of 

 fire our tame dogs become. An Otter is more a water animal than 

 a land ; yet I was told by a gentleman, that he faw a tame Otter fo 

 fond of the fire, as to lie within the fender. — So little can wc judge 

 of the Nature of a tame and houfed animal from the inclinations he 

 fhews in that ftate. 



But, though habit makes fire pleafant to us, and even one of the 

 neceflaries of life, it does not for that make it good. The only ef- 

 fect of fire, with refped to our body, is to warm the atmofphere 

 round it, and thereby give an artificial heat to it. But the true heat 

 of an animal body is within it : Now, this heat the fire does not 

 increafe, but diminifii ; whereas cold air and cold water increafe the 

 natural heat ; and accordingly they promote digeftion and perfpira- 

 tion, which an air heated by fire checks, and, at the fame time, 

 relaxes the folids, and, in the end, debilitates the whole body. 



Our travellers in the South Sea have furnifhed us with a remark- 

 able example of the bad effecHis of fire. The people of New Cale- 

 donia, 



* BufTon, upon the credit of fome experiments, he made upon a fox that he had 

 houfed, and tamed in fome degree, and who would not copulate with a bitch that 

 was in feafon, takes upon him to pronounce decifively that the fox and dog are dif- 

 ferent fpeciefes, and fo far removed from one another, that they will not, like the 

 horfe and afs, even engender together. But the argument will not proceed from a 

 fox houfed and in c?ptivity to a fox living in his natural (late, who, as is well 

 known in the fheep countries in the fouth-wcfl: of Scotland, copulates very frequent- 

 ly with bitches; and they have a race of fheep dogs begot in that way, which are 

 very different from the common flieep dogs, both in outward appearance and in 

 their intimations and difpofitions. I myfeif faw at Langtown in Cumberland, near 

 to the borders of Scotlnni, a bitch, who, as her appearance fhowed, was begot in 

 that way, and who had had three litters at the time I faw her ; which proves what 

 Buffon's experiments would not have proved, if they had fucceeded. 



