304 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book VIL 



be enobled by patents or not, I think a very great lofs to the country. 

 For it is family th^it truly nobilitatesj and I am of an opinion which I 

 heard very often m3."ntained in France, when I was there, about 30 

 years ago, that the King may make a man «o^/<?, that is, give him a title 

 of nobility, but he cannot make him 2i gentleman^ that is, make him no- 

 ble by birtb; and, acco dingly, at that time in France, a Baron, of an old 

 family, was more efteemed than a new created Duke or Peer. Now, 

 as I hold that men of family and birth are deftined by God and na- 

 ture to govern their fellow creatures, I think it is of the utmoft im- 

 portance to a country that the race of fuch men fhould be preferved 

 in it : For if Jupiter were to defcend upon us, as he did upon Da- 

 nae, in ?iJhower of gold ^ and if our rivers were to run like the Her- 

 mus of Virgil, turbid with gold ; — without a numerous race of gen- 

 try, or men of birth, and they men, fuch as they fhould be, we never 

 could be a great and happy nation. They were, in antient times, 

 the governing men in the country, as they were entitled to be ; and 

 •when our James the IV. perifhed, with a great part of his nobles, 

 at the battle of Flowden, we are told by our hiftorians, that there 

 were not men left fufficient to govern the country. Men of the beft 

 families may, no doubt, be very ill educated, and become men more 

 mifchievous than vulgar men, becaufe they have greater abilities ; 

 but if the blood is not there, no education will make them what 

 thev ought to be. Our race of gentry, in Scotland, is diminifh- 

 ing fafter, I am perfuaded, than our nobility, though we cannot 

 jpeak of their numbers with fuch certainty : For many of our younger 

 foiis of families are exported to the Eaft or Weft Indies, and not one 

 of a dozen of them ever comes back; whereas, in antient times, they 

 jE;or provifions in land, out of their elder brother^s eitate, upon which 

 thev fettled, married, and brought up families. Others of them go into 

 tlie fleet or army; of whom the greater part never marry: And of the 

 daughters ftill fev^cr; for they are left, like Jephthah's daufrhter,7o ^f- 

 wail ibeir virginity. Even the eldeft fon and heir of the family does 

 frequently not many; or, if he does, he has often no children, or only 



daughser 



