Chap. IV. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. s3 



man has invented for his own deftrudion, I mean fpirituous liquors, 

 which, fo far from being fit for the drink of any animal, are fuel 

 for fire, producing a quick and violent flame. The being able to 

 endure fuch a life for any number of years, and without that regi- 

 men which the antients ufed conflantly for the prefervation of their 

 health, I mean bathing, anointing, and fridion with a kind of 

 curry-comb, which they called Sfrigil, fhews, in my opinion, 

 a greater ftrength of conftitution than that of the inhabitants of an 

 ifland a degree farther fouth than the Straits of Magellan, whom 

 Sir Francis Drake faw quite naked ; or than the inhabitants of Ter- 

 ra del Fuego, who are very flightly clothed, wearing nothing but 

 Ikins loofely tacked about them, and yet have no difeafe, as far 

 as we know, except blear eyes, which they have got from hang- 

 ing over the fire, the ufe of which they appear to have learned from 

 fome of the nations upon the continent, and in that refpecSt were 

 more unfortunate than the inhabitants of the Ladrone Iflands, or of 

 the country from which the favage girl, whom I faw in France, 

 came. 



That this way of living mufl (horten life, is evident. But what 

 1 think much worfe, it makes that fhort life end with a long and 

 miferable death : For fuch men are nine years a killing, the death that 

 Othello in the Play wiflies that Caffio may die. And I have knowa 

 fome of them, that were 20 years a killing by doftors and apothe- 

 caries ; a death infinitely more miferable than that of DamieUj, 

 which lalled only one day. 



C H A F. 



