70 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



Caiintry in England^ as the Wealth is greater. — More Crimes^ more 

 Vices ^ and more Indigence ^ in Kngland^ than in any other Country, 

 —-Thefe produce a Colony of Convicts to Botany Bay. — A particu^ 

 iar account 'f that Colony given. Indigence the fource of almojl all 

 the Crimes in England. — Ihe dijlin&ton of the Luxurious and lu" 

 dolenty and of thofe that miniftered to their Luxury and Indolence^ not 

 known amonft the Greeks in the Heroic age. — yl particular account 

 of their doineflic occonomy. — 'The fame was the cafe among the Ro" 

 mans in the early ages of their State. — Men in thefe early ages^ bet- 

 ing nearer the natural fate., lived in a m're natural way, and 

 therefore were happier than in later ti?/.es. — In the next Book an 

 Inquiry, Whether fome means might not be contrived to alleviate thefe 

 mif chiefs of Civil Society, 



BY what I have faid in the preceding chapters, I think I have 

 fliown, that money or wealth produces the grpateft mifchief 

 among men, war, alfo trade and navigation to the moft diftant coun- 

 tries of the world, by which, as well as by war, great numbers of 

 men muft be confumed ; and I am now to inquire. Whether, by 

 the ufe of money, thus acquired with fo much deftrudion of the 

 ipecies, men are happier or more miferable in civil fociety than in 

 the natural Hate. 



Homer has told us, and from the mouth of Jupiter, that man is 

 the mofl; miferable creature on this earth *. As Homer knew only 

 men in the civilifed ftate, his opinion clearly is, that men, in that 

 ftate, are not only not happy, but the moft miferable of all animals, 

 that is, more miferable than the animals in the natural ftate, in which 

 all animals are except men. When Homer wrote, money was hard- 



ly 



L * Qy fitv y«(> T« K6V Irli* •V^^*»Tij9» eii^^es 



HxiTftf, *«<re-(c Tt y«*»F tTti^noi rt K»t 'ej.jri..—— Iliad I 7 V. 54^* 



