i8o ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



Bruce, the traveller In Abyffinea, relates, and of which he fays he is 

 fure from an inquiry he made into the ftate of 150 families, that, 

 in Arabia, there dixtfoiir daughters born for one fon. Now, I believe 

 that is the effedt of their early and exceflive venery : And, as the 

 people of fafhion among us are more addided to this excefs than the 

 lower fort, I hold that to be the reafon why, among them, there 

 are more daughters procreated than fons*. 



Not only the natural ufe of women has in this way hurt the hu- 

 man body, but, as if that was not fufficient, other methods of ve- 

 nery have been invented, altogether unnatural, and more pernicious.. 

 Of this kind is the ufe of males, inftead of females, which began, as 

 It appears, among the Greeks, about the time of Laius, father of 

 CEdipus, as Plato informs us t- For the Greek genius appears to 

 have been the moft inventive, both of good and of evil, that ever 

 exifted. From the Greeks, Herodotus tells us, this vice came to the 

 Pcrfians % • And, it is likely, from the fame fource, it was derived to 

 the Ruffians, among whom it is common enough at this day ; and 



has 



be Inquifiti%'e about fuch things. The confequence of this education of the princes,, 

 and their manner of living when they come to be men, is, that they feldom attain, 

 fays our author, to the age of forty, p. 27. He tells us alfo, that they have got 

 the venereal difeafe in that country, which the dancing women there, as well as in 

 the empire of the Mogul, carry- about with them, and beftow very freely among 

 their cuftomers. And he mentions a Sophy, who died while he was there, of a 

 pox, which he got from one of thefe girls, p. 29. Now, I fliould aflc whether it be 

 poflible, without a miracle, that the race of men fliould be preferved in that coun- 

 try, fuch as it was in antient times ? 



• Ariflotle fays, (Lib. vii. Cap. i<5. De Republkay) that, when perfons too young- 

 marry, the offspring is little, weak,, and more femaks than males. And theie is 

 the greatefl reafon to believe that the fame thing will happen if the parents are 

 weakened by any kind of debauchery, particularly by early and exceffive venery, to 

 which we know the Arabians, and all the people of the Eafl, are very much ad« 

 diaed. 



t De Legibui, Lib. viii. p. 836. Edit. Serrani.^ 



X Herodot. Lib, i. Cap. 135. 



\ 



