46 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



whole lives, and not only work themfelves, but oblige their children to 

 work, as in the cotton manufliaure; by which, and by the weaknefles 

 and difeafes of their parents, the confumption of children in England 

 is w^onderfal, and fuch as is not, I believe, to be paralleled in any 

 other nation, antient or modern. But, as if that were not enough, 

 befides manufadures, we have trade to all parts of the world, and 

 fettlements for carrying on that trade in the moft dirtant countries, 

 and in climates the moft averfe to our habits and conftitutions ; fo 

 that the faving of men at home, in every way poffible, is abfolutely 

 neceflary for preferving our numbers, and, I may fay, the exiftence 

 of the nation. For that purpofe, not only our diet muft be regulat- 

 ed, but exercife muft be pradifed, which is abfolutely neceifary in 

 a climate fo variable as ours: For, as the Egyptian Priefts obferved 

 to Herodotus, all changes do more or lefs affed the human body, 

 but none fo much as the changes of weather *. I have already ob- 

 ferved, how much more exercifes were formerly practifed in Britain 

 than now^; even war, as it is now carried on, fmce the invention 

 of gun powder, can be hardly called an exercife; for the walking of 

 our foldiers when they march, the movements they make when 

 they put themfelves in order of battle, and the operations which they 

 perform with their hands and fingers, do hardly deferve the name of 

 exercifes. How different, in this refped, is our way of carrying on 

 war from the manner in which the Romans carried it on. Their 

 foldiers marched as well as ours, but, I believe, a great deal fafter : 

 And they carried four times, I am perfuaded, the weight that our 

 foldiers carry; for they v/ere loaded, as an antient author fays, like 

 mules: And they not only marched, but run to the charge; and 

 pradifed running very much, as an exercife preparatory to war. 

 They pradifed, too, very much the thi owing their mifTile, which 

 they called p'llum^ and with which they did very great execution; 

 for, in one of Julius Ccclar's battles in Gaul, they killed, he fays, 



the 

 * See p. 34. 



