Chap. XVI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. ao^ 



to a very dangerous illnefs, from which fhe recovered chiefly by 

 fucking the warm blood of chickens^'. But we in Europe, not 

 contented with boiling, roafting, or broiling our flefli, give it a 

 relifli with fait, which Salluft, the Roman hiftorian, very proper- 

 ly reckons qne of the irrltamenta gulae, and which the North 

 Americans do not ufe, faying that it produces many of the dlf- 

 eafes to which we are liable f ; and it is certain that fait makes, 

 us both eat and drink more than we fhould do otherwife. But the 

 wealthy among us, not content with that ieafoning for their flefh, 

 ufe many others, and make of it, what they call 7nade d't/JjeSy with 

 high fauces, tending to provoke their appetites to eat more than na- 

 ture requires. And not content with flefli, which the earth or air 

 produces, we go to another element to feek for food ; I mean the 

 water, from which we take flfli that we eat. This was thought by 

 the Egyptians, the moft: antient, and, I believe, the wifefl: people 

 which ever exifted, fo unnatural food, that they did not ufe it^ 

 though their river abounded with it : And even the Greeks did not 

 ufe it at the time of the Trojan war, as I have faid in Vol. III. of this 

 woik:}:, except when they could get no other food. And fifli v/e 

 ufe not only prepared by fire, but drefl"ed with the fineft fauces we 

 can contrive. This is the food which we have devifed for ourfelves, 

 in place of that which God and Nature have deftined for us. As to 

 our drink, it is fliil more unnatural; for it is not the drink of any 

 other animal that lives either on the earth, in the air, or in the wa- 

 ters, but altogether an artificial drink. Some of it is made by fer- 

 mentation, fuch as wine and beer, which are not natural drinks; 

 and, therefore, the inhabitants of New Zealand, and thofe of Terra 

 Del Fuego, one of the coldefl; climates in the world, as they both 

 live in a natural way, will not, as I have been informed, be perfuaded 

 to tafle them : But, in modern times, we have invented another 



G c 2 drink. 



* Vol. III. p. 176, t Ibid. p. 171. 



X Page 93; 



