96 A N T r E N T METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



If vegetables be the food of Man in his natural ftate, there are 

 fome countries of the earth that never could have been inhabited by 

 men in that ftate, as they do not produce vegetables, at leaft thro' 

 the whole year, upon which men could fubfift. We muft. fuppofe, 

 therefore, that the prefent inhabitants of thofe countries have come 

 from other countries, and have brought along wath them the arts 

 there invented, upon which they were enabled to fubfift in thofe 

 inhofpitable regions. The Efquimaux, for exampje, never could 

 have been originally of the countTy, or rather the fea, they inha- 

 bit ; for ic is evident they muft have ftarved before they could have 

 invented the arts by which they live. It is therefore, only, in bet- 

 ter countries and milder climates, that men ever could have li- 

 ved in the natural ftate ; and we muft fuppofe that from thence 

 they have migrated to worfe countries and from thefe to worfe 



ftill, 



The afphodel is not fo common a plant. But Dr Hope of Edinburgh has raifed it in his 

 phyfical garden, and I have feen it, and tafted of it. There is fomethlng acrid in its 

 tafte, but I think it is not at all unpleafant ; and, I am perfiiaded, that, mixed with the 

 mallows, or any other foft laxative herb, it would be very good food. And, accordingly, 

 Theophraflus fpeaks of the roots of it, being beat up with figs, and in that way ufed as 

 .food. Euftathius, in his commentary upon the verfes of Homer above mentioned, quotes 

 an epitaph upon a fepulchre, from which It appears that they were in ufe to fow both 

 the mallows and the afphodel upon tombs ; and in that epitaph the afphodel is faid to be 

 n-aAt/^/^"?, or of many roots; which convinces me that it is the very fame plant that Dr Hope 

 ihowed me; for it had many roots or knobs ; and it was one of thefe that I tafted. 

 There are authors who fay, that, in fome countries, it has commonly fuurfcore of thefe 

 knobs; and the Dodor tells me, that oiie Clufius fays he faw in Portugal a root of it, which 

 contained above 200 knobs, and muft have weighed above 50 pounds. A plant of that 

 kind, in fiich a country as Greece before it was cultivated, would maintain great num- 

 bers of men, cfpccially if we fuppofe, as Homer feems to do, that the meadows were 

 quite covered with it. I have only farther to obferve, that the fowing the mallows and 

 the afphodel upon the tombs or mounds of earth that were raifed over the dead, feems to 

 ■fhow that the common belief was, that thefe plants were the food of the happy men that 

 lived in better days, and therefore might be fuppofed to be the food of fuch men, as, after 

 their death, were to go to that happy world. 



