2o8 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



to be governing men. Captain King, ia the paffage above quoted, 

 informs us, that the lower fort cf people in the Sandwich iflands, 

 befides their inferiority in fize and fliape, are liable to feveral dif- 

 eafes from which the Erees are free. And, according to his ac- 

 count, they have no complaint but what is brought upon them by 

 the ufe of that dreadful liquor, which unhappily they have difco- 

 veredj and appears to be worfe than even our brandy. It is called 

 ava. With refped to health, it may be obferved, that w'lat 

 Captain King fays of the greater health of the men' of diftinc- 

 tion in thofe iflands, is, I believe, true of men of birth every where, 

 if they live as they ought to do ; for I hold it to be one of the cha- 

 ra£leriftics of the noble race among men, that they are healthier and 

 longer lived, if they do not hurt themfelves by an improper way 

 of living, than the reft of the people. And this, I think, is the 

 neceffary confequence of their natural fuperiority in fize and fhape. 

 The fame I hold to be true of horfes of blood, who, according 

 to my obfervation, when they are properly ufed,, are healthier and 

 longer lived than other horfes, and can even endure more ill iilage. 

 In {hoit, I think that the natural equality 0/ men, of which wc 

 have heard fo much of late, is one of the moft abfurd dodrines 

 (hat ever was maintained, contrary both to the reafon of the 

 thing, to fad, and to the general fenfe of mankind : and when 

 applied to government, and made the foundation of the political 

 fyftem, leads to the moft pernicious confequences ; of which we 

 have at prefent a moft melancholy example before our eyes in 

 France. If the philofophers there, who, lam perfuaded, laid the 

 foundation of all the mifchief that has happened in that country, 

 had been truly philofophers, as they call themfelves, or had been 

 learned enough to know the hiftory of man, they would have 

 known, not only that equality was not efl!ential to government, 

 but that, on the contrary, all government was originally founded 

 upon the inequality of men, by which fome men were much fupe- 



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