Chap. IL ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 



91 



donia, though they live within the Tropics, and, one ilionid think, 

 had no occafion for fire at all, yet life it fo much in their huts, 

 and make them fo very warm, that Captain Cook fays he could not 

 bear to be in them a few minutes *. And I have no doubt, 

 that the fvvellings and ulcers, which he fays they have in their 

 legs and feet f, are the confequence of this exceffive ufe of 

 fire ; for otherwife they fliould be as free of difeafe as any 

 people we know, living, as they do, in a good climate, having no 

 ufe of fermented or fpiritous liquors, and fubf'fting entirely upon 

 the fruits of the earth, and fifhing, and none of them livino- indo- 

 lently, like the nobles of Ottaheite, but all obliged to labour for 

 their food. And, indeed, I am perfuaded that a great part of 

 our difeafes, and particularly that foul difeafe, the Kino-'s Evil 

 which has increafed fo much of late, are owing chiefly to the excef- 

 five ufe of fire, and of clofe air fouled by fire and animal breath. 



It is faid in favour of fire, that it cures damps in the air. But I 

 fay, a moift air is not unwholefome, but rather the contrary, unlefs 

 it be loaded with putrid vapours ; and for proof of this I appeal to 

 well known fa£t, that the fea air, which mufl neceflarily be very 

 moift, is neverthelefs very wholefome and often cures men of dif- 

 eafes that they had got at land. The little iflands of St Helena 

 and Bermudas, where the air is conftantly full of vapours from the 

 fea, and very often of its fpray, are remarkably wholefome. But 

 fuppofe the air to be loaded with putrid vapours from fens, I fay the 

 fire will not correct it, but rather make It worfe ; for I hold, in ge- 

 neral, that all air fouled, whether by the breath of animals, or by 

 fuch vapours, becomes more noxious by being heated. In ihort I 

 do not know any other good ufe of fire, except what I have heard 



M 2 



IS 



* Captain Cook's Second Voyage, Vol. ii. p. 121. 

 t Ibid. p. I icj. 



