6ff ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IL 



is by Tveight, and given in exchange for other commodities. But 

 even this ••- ifdom of Lycurgus, the Oracle forefaw, would not fave 

 Spaita from deflruaion by wealth; and, accordingly, it prophefied 

 that the love of wealth, and nothing elfe, would deftroy Sparta *. 



As to Rome, there was there a diftindion of wealthy and poor, 

 as I have Ihown in the pafTage above quoted from the Origin of 

 Language f, fuch as muft have ruined every government, if the 

 poor were to have any fhare in it^ and were not to be abfolute flaves 

 to the rich. 



And here, I think, we cannot fufhciently admire the wifdom of 

 the Egyptian legiflators, who formed a conftitution, which lafted 

 much longer tho.n any other conftitution upon earth; and was not 

 corrupted by wealth, nor deftroyed by any internal diforder in the 

 government, nor by any other caufe except external violence; I 

 mean the invafion of the Perfians, a people who had not beea long 

 in a ftate of civility, and therefore retained that ftrength, both of 

 mind and body, which was not to be found in men who had beert 

 civilifed for thoufands of years, as the Egyptians then were; fo that 

 they were conquered by the Perfians, for the fame reafon that the 

 Perfians conquered the Medes, the Macedonians the Perfians, the 

 Romans the Macedonians, and the barbarous nations, from the 

 North, the Romans; fo true it is, that the civilifed life, eveafuch 

 as that of the Egyptians, the beft, I believe, that ever was, being, 

 notwithftanding, an unnatural life, impairs the ftrength both of the 

 mind and the body of man, however much it may improve him in 

 arts and fciences.. 



CHAP. 



f Vol. 5. p. l88. &C. 



