i82 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IIL 



CHAP. XIV. 



Many of our Modern Difcoveries owing to our Vices and Crimes ^ 

 fuch as the love of Money ^ which has produced the Difcovery of 

 America and the Weji Indies — alfo of the Cape of Good Hope and 

 Greenland. — Praife of Captain Cooke's Voyages of Difcovery. — ■ 

 Advantages of the Difcoveries of the Moderns, in Geography and 

 Navigation — in the Natural Hi/lory of the Earth and its Inhabi- 

 tants, particularly in the Natural Hiflory of Man. — Of the Mo- 

 dern inventions of Clocks and Watches — Window-glafs — the Com- 

 pafi — Paper — and Printing. — A fenfe of the Beautiful congenial to 

 Man, — accompanies him in all his progrefs from the State of Na- 

 ture to Civility. 



FROM what I have faid in the two preceding chapters, it appears 

 that antient nations have, by the means of civil fociety, invent- 

 ed and cultivated many arts and fciences, and thereby very much 

 improved their knowledge, and confequently their intelligence. In 

 this chapter I propofe to fhow that the moderns have not been want- 

 ing, though in a degree much inferior to the antients, in the im- 

 provement of their intelligence by arts and -fciences alfo. 



It is a melancholy refieftion, that our prefent life in Europe 

 fliould be deftrudive both of health and morals, and thereby 

 tend very much to lefTen the numbers of people in the feveral na- 

 tions ; yet, I think, I have faid enough in the courfe of this 

 work, and particularly in the preceding volume, where I have 

 treated of the ftate of population in modern times, compared with 



antient 



