i8o ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II, 



were by nature deflined to govern, would be diftinguiftied by the 

 marks above mentioned from the reft of the herd, and followed and 

 admired; and ihey would be much more fo, when families joined to- 

 gether to form ftates. And if, befides their fuperiority of figure, they 

 diftinguiflied themfelves in fight and in council, and invented or car- 

 ried to greater perfection fome of the neceffary arts of life, they 

 would become chiefs and rulers, and form nations, to which they 

 would give their names. And this I hold to have been the origin ot 

 the firft governments among the Greeks, where fuch men as Dorus, 

 .^olus, Ion, and Hellen, formed the nations Dorians, Cohans, lo- 

 nians, and Hellens ; and in like manner in Afia Dardanus and I'ros 

 formed the ftate of Troy, and gave their names to the people. 



Without men fo diftinguiflied by nature, I do not think that fuch 

 ftates, as I have mentioned, could have been conftituted in Greece, 

 nor indeed in any other country ; for it is impoflible to fuppofe that 

 favages, who had by nature no fuperiority one above another, would 

 aflemble together, form a plan of polity, and chufe kings or gover- 

 nors : I am perfuaded, therefore, that in every country, when polity 

 firft began, providence fo ordered things, that men ftaould have the 

 afTiftance either of Beings fuperior to men, fuch as the Daemons in 

 Egypt were, (which country, as it was intended to be the parent 

 country of all arts and fciences, appears to have been particularly fa- 

 voured by heaven,) or of men much fuperior to other men, and who 

 were by God and nature deftined to govern their fellow creatures. 

 And this 1 hold to have been the origin of all nobility, and of the 

 Jure Divino right of Kings. Of fuch a King Homer has faid, 



And this leads me to fpeak of thofe heroic Kings of Greece, who 

 fought at Troy, to whom Homer fo properly applies thefe lines, and 



of 



♦ Iliad. 2. V. 205. 



