2o8 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



It may be thought, that, however hurtful this invention may be, 

 it was of abfolute neceffity for enabling man to endure the cold of 

 the weather. If this were fo, it might be fuppofed that the wif- 

 dom and goodnefs of God had formed the chief animal of this 

 earth fo much inferior to other animals, that he could not live 

 without the ufe of what 1 have fhown to be neceffarily hurtful 

 to him, as tending to produce both weaknefs and difeafe and con- 

 fequcntly to fhorten his life. But that is not the cafe : For, 1 think, 

 I have proved, in Vol. III. of this work*, that man can live naked 

 in climates much colder than that of Britain, particularly in the cli- 

 mate of New Holland, in the fouthern latitude of 44; and that, 

 under the Emperor Severus, the people in the fouthern parts of Scot- 

 land, called Maatcs^ lived abfolutely naked. The anceftors of 

 the people of Britain, the Celts, who came from Gaul and peopled 

 Britain, wore no clothes ; and the marks of dignity among them 

 they engraved upon their Ikins, till they began to wear clothes; and 

 then they painted them upon their bucklers and ftandards. This 

 fad; we ^re told by an author who has written an excellent work 

 upon the hiftory of the Celts f. In Vol. IV. of this work J, I have 

 quoted an author of the name of Zimmerman, who has written a 

 work, entitled Zoograph'ie Geographique, where he gives an account 

 of men being able to endure the greateft cold that art can produce, 

 that is by the mixture of fal ammoniac and ice; for fo great is the cold of 

 Nova Zembla, and therefore, fays he, bears cannot live there, nor any 

 other animal except man and a white fox: And he tells us, that in 

 Greenland the men have their bodies very flightly covered, their head 

 and neck quite uncovered, and no fire in their huts. Sir Francis 

 Drake faw naked favages in a boat at fea, a degree farther fouth than 

 the Straits of Magellan ; which is a climate very much colder than 

 any country we have difcovered in any northern latitude. I hold it, 

 therefore, to be certain that man can bear as much cold as any ani- 

 mal 

 * Page 29. and following. ■{• Pellutier, p. 159. % Page 52. 



