2o6 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 11. 



which no people can be well governed or happy ; and to their care 

 were likewife committed arts and faiences, without which, as I have ob- 

 ferved in more than one place, it is impoflible that man can m.ake any 

 confiderable progrefs in this life towards recovering his former ftate, 

 as that can only be by the improvement of his intelledual faculty, 

 which is of the eflence of man, and without which he can have no 

 jufl idea of fupreme intelligence, nor confequently be truly religi- 

 ous. For this I have given a very good reafon, which is, that men 

 in the uncivilized ftate, or even in the firft age of civility, cannot be' 

 philofophers enough to know themfclves: For as man is made after 

 the image of God, and is the only image of him upon this eaith, it 

 ' is by the ftudy of himfelf only that a man can have any idea of the 

 fupreme being: And, therefore, 1 have faid, that nations in the rude 

 ftate of fociety, which have got any idea of a God, muft have got 

 it from other nations, more advanced in civility and arts *. 



In this manner was the beft race of men in Egypt dlftin- 

 guifhed and feparaied from the refl of the people. And here, 

 though I have faid a good deal in the preceding chapter up- 

 on the natural difference of men, I will add fomelhing more up- 

 on the fubje(f^. The mofl: antient nation at prefent in the world, 

 now that the Egyptian is no more, is the Indian. There, Ariftotle 

 tells us, upon the authority of an author he calls Scylax, that the 

 Princes of India were as much fuperior to the other men of the 

 country, both in mind and body, as the Greeks fuppofed their Gods 

 and heroes to have been to other ment: And I was informed by 

 a man, who had been much in the inland parts of India, that at 

 this day their Rajahs, or Princes, are handfomer, of larger fize, and 

 more dignified appearance, than the reft of the people. And the Bra- 

 mins, being the beft race of men in India, as the Egyptian Priefts 

 were the beft race there, are eafily diftinguifhed from the reft of 



the 

 • Page 153. and following of this volume, 



f De Republica. Lib. 7. Cap. 14. 



