V2 A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



the earth produces, even the grafs of the fields* ; and not only up- 

 on the fruits of trees, but upon their barks ; and he can live in 

 all climates of the earth, and endure the greateft extremuies both of 

 heat and cold t« But what I think (hews the ftrength of his confti- 

 tution more than any thing I have mentioned, is the life of many 

 people of falhion in great towns, particularly in London, who not 

 only feed upon what I call an unnatural diet, that is flefh, and drink 

 ftrong liquors, but ufe fire, which, as Horace fays, has brought upon 

 the earth a cohort (he might have faid a legion) of difeafes. And not 

 only do they not work off the effeds of this unnatural life by any exer- 

 cife worth mentioning ; but they do not even enjoy the common be- 

 nefit of air, at lead of a pure uncorrupted air j for if fuch an air was> 

 to be got in a city like London, wliere the fuel ufed muft neceflarily 

 fill the air with fulphureous vapours, they do not go out to feek ir» 

 When they fay they go oa/, they truly go zw, as they do not 

 walk the flreets, but ufe clofe carriages, in which they may be faid 

 to be poifoned by their own breath. And if fuch be the life of the 

 people of fafl:iion in London, how much worfe muft the life of the 

 vulgar be, who befides pradifing arts very unfavourable to health, 

 ufe a drink the raoft pernicious of all the things which the art of 



man- 



* Appian, De Bdlis Pitnuis, p. 6. & 63. in fine. Herodotus, lib. 3. cap. 28. lib. 

 8. cap, 115. 



f There is a book written upon this fubje^ by a German of the name of Zim- 

 merman, entitled, Zoographie Geographique, where he tells us, that man can live 

 where the mercury falls 126 degrees below Zero, according to Fahrenheit's 

 thermometer, which is the greateft cold that art can produce by the mixture of 

 fal amoniac and ice. This cold, he fays, the bears in Nova Zembia cannot bear, nor 

 any other animal, except man and the whit- fox. And he tells us, that in Green- 

 land the men have their bodies very flightly covered, their head and neck quite unco- 

 vered, and no fires in their huts. As to heat, he relates, upon the authority of a 

 French academician, that women can work in an oven heated to the degree of 275, 

 by the fame thermometer, which the academician fays he faw. 



