44 A K T I E X T METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



ed from the injuries of the vreather by thickets, rocks, and caves, 

 la caves the Cyclops, as Homer tells us, lived ; and in the fame way, 

 fays Dionyfius, lived the Cureies in Crete *. The antient inhabi- 

 tants of Italy lived in the hollows of trees ; and the New Hollan- 

 ders do the fame at this day f. This laft mentioned habitation Na- 

 ture has provided for man, and alfo caves in many places : As to 

 thefe, vrhere Nature did not furnifh them, men have fupplied the 

 want by labour and art. Diodorus tells us, that in his time the in- 

 habitants of the Balearic Iflands dwelt in caves which they dug out 

 of the rocks %• But before men could do this, they muft have made 

 feme progrefs towards a life of civility and arts ; for at firft I am 

 perfuaded, they ufed no other protedion againft the weather, but 

 fuchasthe brutes ufe; that is, what nature has provided. When that 

 was found not fufficient, it was very natiu'al that men fhould make 

 to themfelves habitations in the rocks, or under ground, before they 

 learned to raife above ground that artificial habitation we call a 

 houfe. And I am perfuaded, that thole excavations of rocks that 

 are to be feen in AbyiTmia, and other parts of the world, and parti- 

 cularly in the ifland of Elephantis, off the coaft of Bombay, where 

 there are to be feen, not only fingle houfes, but little cities and 

 ftreets, all cut out of the rocks §, were all the original habitations of 

 men. 



That 



• Lib. 5. cap. 65. 



f Vol. III. of this work, p. 83. 

 } Diidorus, cap. 1 7. 



5 See vol. III. of tKis work, p. 83. and 84. Tht fame excavations of rocks are 

 to be feen in another ifland, called Salfei, near to Gca. See Letters upon the Origin 

 of the Sciences, p. 312. addreSed to M. Voltaire by M. Bailly, printed in 

 1777. See alfo Churchhill's -voyages, vol. 4th. p. 154, where we hare, from the 

 famous traveller Gemelli, an account of the excavations in the ifland of Sal/et. We 

 have an account, L'kewife, of tfcofe of Elephantis, horn Hamilton's New Account of 

 the Eaft Indies, vol. ift. chap. i:. p. 245. Sec alfo Bryanrs Mythology, vol. 3d, p. 



t6i. 



