•294 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



their regard for the animal life, which I could not have believed, if 

 it had not been attefted by more than one gentleman who have been 

 in India. They told me, that, in the town of Bombay, the Hin- 

 doos had fo much concern about the maintainance of what we think 

 a vile and contemptible infedt, and which is very troublefomc to us, I 

 mean the bug, that they hire people to allow themfelves to be fed up- 

 on in the night time by that animal. To feed, in this way, with the 

 blood of our own bodies, fo mean an infe<St, is carrying our regard 

 for the animal life much too far : But we in Europe go to the other 

 extreme, and abufe very much that dominion which God has givea 

 us over the animals of this earth, treating even the nobleft of them, 

 fuch as the horfe, who is of more ufe and ornament to us than any 

 other, very often in the worft manner *. 



And not only in their religion, government, and manner of life, 

 is there fuch a conformity with the Egyptians, but alfo in their plea- 

 fures ; for, in their feftivals, they have dramatical reprefentations of 

 their religious myfteries, fuch as they Egyptians had in what they 

 called their S'tixriX)] f. 



CHAF. 



* Holwell, p. 147. 

 •f Ibid. p. 145. 



