184 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 11. 



founded ftates or performed any great adion, that were not defcend- 

 ed of noble parents. Among us at this day, no horfe is efteemed 

 that is not of a good race ; and no reafon can be given why there 

 fliould not be blood in men as well as in horfes and other animals*; 

 for if it were otherwife, it would be a Angularity in our fpecieS) fuch 

 as cannot be prefumed. Homer geneologifes his heroes as accurately 

 as we do our horfes ; or even as the Arabians do theirs, who record 

 the geneologies of their noble horfes as carefully as we in Scotland 

 record the rights to our lands; and fome of thefe geneologies are carri- 

 ed back 2000 years : I fay their noble horfes; for we are not to ima- 

 gine that all the horfes of Arabia are of equal value : For there are 

 - there, as well as among us, vulgar horfes of no eftimation. But 

 not only in the heroic age was birth in fuch eftimation, but alfo in 

 later times. Among the Athenians there were the evraT^i^ctiy that 

 is, men of noble families, who were highly refpeded till the go- 

 vernment became quite democratical : and then almoft all the offices 

 of State, all of them as far as I remember, except that of General 

 or Admiral, vpere difpofed of by lot among the people, without the 

 leaft regard to birth, education, or fortune. Among the Romans in 

 the firft ages of their ftate, the men of birth made a diftindl order or 

 clafs of men quite different from the Plebeians or vulgar men ;*and they 



only difcharged the great offices of ftate. And their race was kept 



pure 



• Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis : 

 ElT: in juvencis, eft in equis patrum 

 Virtus ; nee imbellem feroces 

 Progenerant aquila: columbam. 



Herat. Lib. 4. Od. 4. 

 By which it would fcem, Horace thought that there was as great, or nearly as great, 

 a difTerencc betwixt races of the fame fpecies, as betwixt different fpeciefes of animals 

 of the fame genus. To this authority from Horace, may be added the authority of 

 Ariftotle, who has defined nobility to be x^tri) rev yiveg : And indeed the very name 

 given it in Greek of luynu* implies that. It is, therefore, evident that Ariftotle, as 

 well as Horace, thought that nobility was not a thing merely of iiijlituiion, as fome 

 people now»a-days believe it to be, but that it had a foundation in nature. 



