ii6 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



fcience, not prad:iced at random and occafionally, as among us, but 

 at certain times and places appointed for that purpofe, under the di- 

 redion and infpCiStion of mafters, who, if they were eminent in their 

 profeiTion, were very much efteemed. Tothefe exercifes they joined 

 anointing, bathing, fridtion, and even what we would call curry- 

 combing. The order in which all this was done, and the whole pro- 

 cefs of the matter, may be feen in a very learned and curious book, 

 written by Hicronymus Mercurialis, upon the Gymnaflic Art, par- 

 ticularly in the Thirteenth Chapter of his Fourth Book *. By this 

 regimen, joined with a proper diet, a man was put in order, as ahorfe 

 among us ; and a man, in that order, was as readily diftinguifhed 

 among them, as a horfe is among us by one of our fkilful grooms. 

 All gentlemen among the Greeks had their bodies in that order ; 

 and hence it was that Socrates, in Xenophonf, faid to one of his fol- 

 lowers who negledled his exercifes, wf iIiutiku? ix^n to (ru/Aa, that is, 

 *■ Houu ujilike a gentleman is the appearance of your Body ?[ 



Now, I think, it is impoffible, by the nature of things, but that 

 men, who pradiced the exercifes that thefe antient Greeks and Ro- 

 mans did, muft have been ftronger men theinfelves than wc, and 

 confequently muft have begot ftronger children. 



It is for thefe reafons, that I cannot reconcile the hypothefis, of 

 men continuing always the fame, with profane hiftory : And ftili 

 lefs can 1 reconcile it with facred ; for how can we believe that 

 men, fuch as we, lived eight or nine hundred years, or even as 

 long as the Patriarchs lived after the Flood. If, therefore, 1 were to 

 adopt this hypothefis, I muft at the fame time believe that the an- 

 tient hiftorians, both facred and profane, have either been miftaken, 



P 2 or 



* Page 296. 

 |- Memorabilia. 



