Chap. VI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 185 



indolence and inadivity of their Hves. The youth of Rome were 

 able to fupport a great deal of hixury and debauchery, by the vio- 

 lent exercifes they took in their Campus Martins, and in the River 

 as well as in the Field. And the Athenians, by the exercifes of the 

 Palaejlra, which they all pradifed more or lefs, old as well as 

 young, were enabled to indulge themfelvcs to a great degree, both 

 in wine and venereal pleafures, without being much hurt by them : 

 Whereas our youth, living upon a diet which requires more than or- 

 dinary labour to work it off, and enjoying, at the fame time, all o- 

 ther pleafures they can think of, inftead of the fevere exercifes of 

 the Greeks and Romans, fpend their nights, as well as their days, 

 in card-playing, an occupation equally ruinous to Body and Mjnd. 

 And even the employment of the lower fort of people among us, in 

 manufadures and other fedentary arts, often carried on in places 

 very unwholefome, muft have a very bad effed, both upon the 

 health and ftrength of men. And, accordingly, the difference is vi^ 

 fible in the looks of the inhabitants of a manufadurin«- town com- 

 pared with the looks of the inhabitants of the country, or of a country 

 village : And the difference in the article of mortality is prodigious; 

 In Manchefter there dies every year one of tiventy- eight ; but in 

 Monton, a little hamlet or towniliip about fix miles from Manchef- 

 ter, one oi Jixty- eight. This I am aflured of by a learned phyfician 

 in Manchefter, Dr Percival, who made the calculation upon a me^ 

 dium of ten years in each of the places. 



But, as if the difeafes, which our vices and unnatural way of 

 living muft of neceftity produce, were not fufficient, there are 

 others imported from abroad, which are not natural to us, but the 

 produce of countries, where civility, and, by confequence, difeafc, 

 are very much older than any where in Europe ; I mean Egypt, 

 and the Eaft. From thofe countries have come all thofe dread- 

 ful plagues, which at different times have made fuch havack 

 in Europe. The plague of A then?, fo accurately defcribed by 



Vol. III. A a TIui-^ 



