2o6 ANTIENT METATHYSICS. Book 11. 



arts. Cf this kind were the Fijlo-eatcrs and tlie Infcnfibles^ of whom 

 Dicdorus fpeaks *. 



Another thing to be obferved is the country and climate in which 

 thofe favagcs live ; for, if the climate be mild, and the country a- 

 bounding in all the natural fruits of the earth, and not fo over- 

 ftocked wnth inhabitants, but that they may all live at their eafe, the 

 confequence will be, that the people of fuch a country will have little 

 fpirlt or underftanding, and will be a dull, fluggillijUnwarlike people. 

 This was the cafs of the inhabitants of the iflands of the Weft Indies, 

 where the Spaniards firft landed when they difcovered the new 

 world. The Spaniards, therefore, treated them as beafts, and be- 

 lieved, or pretended to believe, that they were no better, till their 

 humanity was eftabliflied by a Bull of the Pope. The fame was the 

 cafe, in fomc degree, of the people of Mexico and Peru : But the 

 inhabitants of Canada, and other parts of North iVmerica, were a 

 people altogether different ; for, living in a country and climate 

 where men could not fubfift without the invention and practice of 

 the arts of hunting and lifhing, nor without much toil and labour 

 and great indurance of the injuries of weather, and being alfo en- 

 £:ac:ed in frequent wars with one another, a noble race of men was 

 formed, fuch as would have done honour to any age or country in 

 the world. Whoever, therefore, confounds thefe nations of North 

 America with the Southern Americans and the inhabitants of the 

 Weft India Iflands, and fpeaks of them promifcuoufly, as a weak, 

 effeminate, contemptible race of men, knows nothing of either the 

 hiftory or philofophy of human nature. 



It is by the example of thofe nations of North America that I 

 propofe to fhow what men were in the firft ages of fociety, and in 

 countries where a life of toil and labour, and the practice of arts, 

 was of abfolute necelTity, And I choofe living examples of this 



kind, 



• Page 51. 



