Chap. I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 51 



the difference betwixt our manner of living and that of the antient 

 nations, fuch as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans ; and, 1 think, 

 I have proved, that, in what the Romans called the cura corporis^ 

 they excelled us very much. As health is the greateil blefling we 

 enjoy in this life, and the foundation of every other, vre can- 

 not give too much attention to it; for without it we cannot, in 

 this ftate of our exiflence, united as we are with body, cultivate pro- 

 perly our minds, or make that progrefs in arts and fciences, in reli- 

 gion and philofophy, by which only we can prepare ourfelves for a 

 happier life in the next world. If the men in antient times had 

 been as difeafed and fhort lived as we are, I am perfuaded that not 

 one half of the arts and fciences, w^hich have come down to us from 

 the antient world, could have been invented. 



I come now to fpeak of the difference betwixt the minds of men 

 in the natural ftate, and of thofe in the civilifcd life ; and as mind 

 is the principal part of our compofition, the difference, with regard 

 to it, betwixt the two ftates, mull be of the greateft confequence, and 

 therefore is carefully to be attended to. It is the feveral arts and fci* 

 ences, invented by man in the civilifed life, which make fo great a 

 difference betwixt the two ftates. After the neceffary arts were dif- 

 covered, the inventive genius of man did not ftop there, but pro- 

 ceeded, as I have faid *, to find out arts of eafe, convenience, and 

 pleafure. Thefe excited not only our bodily appetites, but various 

 paffions In the minds of men; fuch as vanity, ambition (or the love 

 of fuperiority and power), envy, jealoufy, anger, and revenge: And 

 there is another paflion which diftinguifties the civilifed lift from the 

 natural, more than any 1 have mentioned ; for it is peculiar to the 

 civilifed life : I mean the love of money, or whatever icX^o. makes 

 what we call wealth. This may be faid to be the moft laftino- of 

 all our paffions; for it is not abated, like our other paffions, by old 



G 2 age, 



* Page 10. 



