50 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book L 



ral diet, they were very much longer lived than after the Flood, 

 when they fed upon flefti, and confequently more healthy, and of 

 greater fize and ftrength. And I hold that they have been degene- 

 rating ever fince, and ftill continue to degenerate ; which every 

 man, who has lived fo long as I, may obferve : For I am now- 

 living, as Neftor lived, with the third generation ; and I can fay 

 with him, ' That I have feen fuch men as I do not now fee, 



• nor ever expedl to fee*.' And 1 think I can add, as Neftor does, 

 ' That with fuch men I lived and converfed.' And the fame poet tells 

 us, from the mouth of the Goddefs of Wifdom, ' That the children 



• now are not like their fathers f.' A learned Roman, Solinus 

 Polyhiftor, aiks the queftion, ^is enhn jam aevo nojiro non minor 

 parentibus Juis iiafciturf To thefe teftimonies may 'be added, that of 

 the Greek philofopher Empedocles, who fays, ' That the men of his 



• lime were of the fize of children, compared with antient men |.' 

 Who would defire to know more of the degeneracy of men, in fize and 

 ftrength, may confult a book written by one Fiermannus Conrin- 

 gius, a German, entitled De Habitus Corporum Germanicorum^ antiqiii 

 ac Novi, Cau/isy where he will find many curious fads concerning 

 the ftature of men, and a great deal concerning giants, who appear 

 not only to have been in the land of Canaan, but in the northern 

 parts of Europe, and indeed in every country in the world, of whofe 



antient 



©»)«-|« T* Aiynh>t £5r(M)nA«» uiaiuTtiri, 



Iliad I. V. 262^ 



t Ou yue T»( »«(?«{ 'tftuci iritr^i viXcnict, 



OdyiT, II. V, 273. 

 Jl Plutarchus, De Placiiis Philofiphorum.^ in the end of that work. 



