Chap, XIV. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 183 



antient, to eftablifh this truth. The ftate of civility in Europe, 

 however, has its advantages; for it contributes not a little to the 

 increafc of our knowledge, and makes us certainly creatures more 

 intelligent than we could have been if we had continued in the 

 natural ftate, and even more intelligent in fome refpeds than the 

 moft learned among the antients. The very many arts which we 

 pradife at prefent in the nations of Europe, tend to improve our 

 knowledge, and confcquently our intelligence. And even Ibme of 

 our vices have a great tendency that way ; particularly there is the 

 love of money, which is faid to be the root ot all evil, and undoubt- 

 edly produces more crimes and vices than all our other paffions put to- 

 gether, but which has wonderfully enlarged our fpliere of knowledge, 

 and may be faid to have difcovered to us this earth that we inhabit, 

 which was very imperfectly known to the antients. It is the love 

 of money w-hich has made men go all over the earth in fearch of it. 

 It was this paffion that made the Portuguefe undertake that won- 

 derful voyage by the Cape of Good Hope to the Eaft Indies, ia 

 which they have been followed by the Dutch, the French, and the 

 Engliih, who have fettled colonies there, by which means that fine 

 country, perhaps the fineft in the world, but which was hardly- 

 known at all to the antients, is now perfedlly well known. Many 

 attempts have been, made to tind a fhorter way to this country 

 than by the way which the Portuguefe had difcovered, by the 

 Cape of Good Hope, particularly by the north-weft, all from the 

 fame motive, the love of money ; and in thefe attempts a great 

 many countries have been difcovered that before were altogether, 

 unknown.. And there is a country which is more extra anui folif- 

 que vias than any other country we know, and which we fhould 

 not have thought habitable by man, if it had not been difcovered 

 by thefe adventurers in fearch of a fliorter paflage to the Eaft 

 indies, and found to be actually inhabited. The country I mean is 

 Greenland, which was firft peopled from the ifland of Iceland, like- 

 wife 



