Chap. VI. ANT I ENT METAPHYSICS. 195 



better fort : For fuch is the efFed of wealth in a nation, that (how- 

 ever paradoxical it may appear,) it does at laft make all men poor 

 and indigent ; the lower fort through idlcncfs and debauchery, 

 the better fort through luxury, vanity, and extravagant expence. 

 Now, I would defire to know, from the greateft admirers of mo- 

 dern times, who maintain that the human race is not degenerated, 

 but rather improved, whether they know any other fource of hu- 

 man mifery, befides vice, difeafe, and indigence ; and whether thefe 

 three are not in the greateft abundance in the rich and flouriihhig 

 country of England ? 



I would further afk thefe gentlemen, whether, in the cities of the 

 antient world, there were poor's houfes, hofpitals, infirmaries, and 

 thofe other receptacles of indigence and difeafe, which we fee in the 

 modern cities ? and whether, in the ftreets of antient Athens and 

 Rome, there were fo many objects of difeafe, deformity, and mife- 

 ry, to be feen, as in our ftreets, befides thofe which are concealed 

 from public view in the houfes above mentioned. In later times, in- 

 deed, in thofe cities, when the corruption of manners was almoft as 

 great as among us, fome fuch things might have been feen, as we 

 are fure they were to be feen in Conftantinople under the later 

 Greek Emperors *. And it may perhaps be fome comfort to the 

 modern reader, to be informed, that even in antient Athens a 

 mad democracy, which then governed that ftate, had, by their rafh 

 counfels and extravagant projefts, reduced the people to fuch in- 

 digence, that fome of the citizens were not afhamed to afk money 

 from pafTengers in the ftreets ; a fa6t I could not have believed, 



B b 2 except 



See Page 113. 



