^ ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book L 



the "Earth --is however very big and Jlrong, — The mojl remarkable 

 . people living in the Natural State^ are the people of the Ladrone 

 JJlands, — A particular account of them given by Mar tinier re in his 

 Dictionary ^ taken from a h'fory of them -written by Father Gaubien 

 "—a healthy long lived people-^and of great fi%e and frength of 

 body. — Another people living in the natural ivay. are the inhabi- 

 tants of North Van Dicmens Land in New Holland. — They are the 

 mofl indigent people that have yet been dfcuvered. — The Earth pro^ 

 duces no fruit that Man can live upon, — They live therefore upon 

 fjdl-ffi^ that they gather upon the /ands or in creeks and bays 

 at low water. — They have no habitations but in the trunks of 

 trees ^ which they hollow.^ and make fires in them for roafing their 

 fifh. — Though fo indigent^ they are a very honeft people. — The peo^ 

 pie of Italy ^ ".vhen Saturn came among theni^ lived in the fame man- 

 ner. — Of a Man of Norfolk., known by the name of the Norfolk 

 Idiot, W)ho was dire&ed by Infiintl to live in the natural -way., 

 without Clothes or Houfe. — The pure Natural Life to be fcen only ifr 

 the Brutes. — They are guided only by hiflinSi^ not by Intelligence ; 

 though they perform wonderful works for the prefervation of the 

 individual and the continuation of the kind. — If Man had been di- 

 redfed in the fame way to provide for the neceffaries of Life .^ his in- 

 telle ^ never could have been cultivated, nor Arts and Sciences i?r- 

 vented. — The pro^refs of his intelleB in finding out, firfi., the mofi 

 neceffary Arts of Life., then other Arts and Sciences., and fo advanc- 

 ing in his progrefs toivards regaining his. former fiate. — The wi/dom 

 and good nefs of God in this matter to be much admired, 



Ihave fald a great deal of the natural (late of man, enough, I hope, 

 to convince my readers that it did once exift, and that it was very- 

 different from a life of civility and arts. It is the greateft change 

 that man has undergone in this life, and therefore the difference be- 

 twixt it and the ftate of nature ought to be carefully attended to. 



As 



