42 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



it, I am confident tliat they never could have conquered Italy, 

 (which was their hardeft t.iik), or become mailers of the world. 

 Such exercifes were formerly ufed by the peafants all over Britain ; 

 and the pradlice of them ought, if pofTible, to be renewed: And we 

 fhould never forget, that, if we Vv^ould have a populous country, the 

 £irms muft be Imall, as they were among the Romans in the antient 

 ages of their ftate; and that no increafe of towns, or of great vil- 

 lages, can make up for the defolation of the country (the true mo- 

 ther and nurfe of men) by great farms. It was by their country 

 being lb much peopled in that way, that Rome, and the other fmall 

 ftates of Italy, were enabled to raife and recruit, after the greateft 

 lofles, fuch armies as appeared incredible to the Romans, in the days 

 of Auguftus Csefar; v^'hen, as Livy tells us, the flaves of the Roman 

 nobility a folhudine v'lndicahant thofe countries that once fent forth 

 fuch armies. 



In later times, when the wealth of Afia came to Rome, rural la^ 

 bour was not pradifed by the citizens, nor were there any more 

 Dictators, like Cincinnatus, taken from the plough. But the Greek 

 philofophy, as 1 have elfewhere obferved*, dill prefcrved fome virtue 

 among them, amidft the corruption of the greateft wealth. We have 

 not that antidote againft this moft deadly poifon of the human kind-: 

 But whether the natural good difpofitions of the people of Great 

 Britain, the excellence of our political conftitution, the admira- 

 tion and envy of all Europe, and fuperior, as we are told, to any 

 thing of the kind contrived by antient wifdom, may not preferve us 

 againft Afiatic wealth, and ihow us that a great kingdom may be 

 well governed without philofophy, that our fleets and armies may 

 be perfedly well condudted, though our generals and admirals may 

 not have learned the art of war as Lucullus did, by reading the 

 Greek authors; — whether, in iliort, all our affairs, public and private, 

 may not be conduced as well as pofliblc with the afliftance of mo- 

 dern 



* Origin of Language, vol. 3. p. 458. ami 459. 



