Chap. VI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 175 



took to a diet ftill more unnatural, and became carnivorous animals, 

 which, as I have obferved, the antedeluvian Patriarchs, who lived io 

 long, were not. 



This change of diet, which, I am perfuaded, was at firft 'from 

 neceffity, and not of choice, changed the very nature of man, and 

 made him of a tame and gentle animal, fuch as the Oran Outan is, 

 an animal of prey ; for it was in this way that, I believe, the firil 

 flefh was eaten. But, afterwards, it was eaten, in what I rather think 

 a worfe way, though it be now the common way of procuring it ; 

 for, inftead of killing wild animals, as the bealls of prey do, we tame 

 animals, bring them under our roof, nurfe their young, and then 

 we eat both the parents and the offspring. This appears to fome 

 Tartar nations to be fo contrary to the laws of hofpitality, that, 

 though they eat the game they kill, they will not eat their cattle, 

 which they confider as under their protection *. I know many are 

 of opinion that the flefli diet, however unnatural I may think it, 

 gives greater ftrength than the vegetable. But this opinion is con- 

 trary, both to experience, and to the reafon of the thing : The O- 

 ran Outan of Angola, who is fo much bigger and ftronger than 

 we, eats nothing but vegetables ; and the Elephant, fo much big- 

 ger and ftronger ftill, feeds only on herbage, and on the leaves and 

 branches of trees : And, as to civilized Men, it is a fadt well 

 known, that the Arabian porters at Baftbra, whofe food is dates, 

 and their drink water, will carry a very much greater weight 

 than any Englifh porter, who feeds upon flefli, and drinks beer f. 



And 



* This is related by a Tartar hiftorian, Abul Gazi Chan, in his Genealogical 

 Hiftory of Tartary, a book, 1 think, of great curiolky, and undoubtedly the mofl 

 authentic hiftory extant of that great country. 



1 1 am informed by a friend of mine, who has been there, that one of them, when 

 he is fupported by a man on each fide of him,'will carry a ton of wine, that iS;, 

 twenty hundred weight, upon his back, which he fays he has feen- 



