Chap. II. A N TI E N T INI E T A P H Y S I C S. 91 



tiie people of the Pelew Iflands/ being farther advanced in arts and 

 in civilifed life, having, as I have (hewn*, a regular polity, were 

 extremely curious and defuous to be informed aliout our fhips, and 

 all our machinery; and it was that dcfire of learning which made 

 the kings fon leave his country, father, and family, to go with u% 

 And with this diifindion we ought to underftand what Ariftotie fays 

 of the love of knowledge being natural to man : For he mu't be 

 advanced fome degrees in his intellectual faculty before he has that 

 love; but, when he is {q far advanced, as knowL-dge is the food of 

 intelled and its fole delight, he muft have a love lor it. A man, 

 therefore, who has been any time in the civilifed ftcite, having ac- 

 quired the ufe of intelled:, his natural love Oi knowledge will be 

 excited in him by the various ohjefts both of nature and ar^:, which 

 he obferves in that ftate; and he will admire nothing more tuan 



Hunc folem, et ftellas, et decedentia certis 

 Tempora momentis f : 



For the heavens declare the glory of the Lord,, as our fcripture fays, 

 and raife our admiration more than any thing elfe, when we begin 

 to think and reafon upon the great Book of Nature: For it was taat 

 book that firfl; made philofophers ; and accordingly the firft pliilofo- 

 phy, that was cultivated in Greece, and, 1 believe, in all coun ries, 

 was natural philofophy. But it was not till men had confidered the 

 objeds which their fenfes, our firft inlets of knowledge, prefented 

 to them, that they began to conlider mind and its operations, wJiicli 

 they learned from the ftudy of their own minds : For it was not tUl 

 then that they pradtifed the precept of the Delphic God, Know thy lei f 

 But, how many men, In the moft advanced ages of focioties, fee all the 

 wonders both of heaven and earth, without being ftruck with won- 

 der, which, as Ariitotle tells us, is the beginning of all philofophy; 



M 2 and 



* Vo\ /. p. 57. 



t Hor. Lib. j. Epift. (5. 



