i86 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



fame fpecies of animals; for we have found him in all the dif- 

 ferent fteps of his progrefs from a mere brute to an animal of in- 

 telledl and fcience. The inhabitants of New Holland have got no 

 farther than the firft ftep in that progrefs. Of them we have a very- 

 particular account in a work entitled, The Hiftory of New Holland, 

 which is a collection from all the books of travels to that great 

 ifland. From what we are told in this book, it appears that the 

 New Hollanders have got no kind of art among them, except the 

 ufe of fome fort of language, which they certainly did not invent, 

 but muft have acquired by their intercourfe with fome other nation. 

 They have alfo the ufe of fire : But as to houfes, they have none, 

 not even huts; nor do they live in caves, but, as the antient inha- 

 bitants of Italy did when Saturn came among them, in the hollows 

 of trees, which they make by fire *. Neither have they any ule of 

 clothes, for they go quite naked : But, by way of ornament, they 

 make large punctures or furrows on different parts of their bodies, 

 fome in ftraight, and others in curved linesf ; fo that they do not 

 paint their bodies, as fome other barbarous nations do, but rather 

 carve them, which our author very properly confiders as a proof of 

 their love of finery. 



The authors, who mention thofe New Hollanders, fpeak nothing 

 of their government; but, as they live in herds feparated from one 

 another, I think there n^.ufl be fome kind of government among 

 them, (though but a very imperfedl one), otherwife they could not 

 be kept diftind from one anotlier. 



The next ftep in this procirefs is, I think, that of the inhabitants 

 of the Ladrone iflands, A'ho, in one rdpeiSl, when the Europeans 

 firfl: came among them, were in a ftate fiill more rude than that of 



the 

 • See p. 70. of this Hiftory of New Holland. 

 •f Ibid. p. 55. 



