240 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



to get out of fuch a ftatc, he takes to drinking, fmoaking, fnufF- 

 ing, playing at cards and dice, or to what I hold to be a better 

 amufcmcnt than any of thcfc, as it is fome exercife to the body 

 thongli very little to the nilnd; I mean that which Horace mentions, 

 7idifin on a long fuck '*. And I think it is well if his plcafures, which 

 give him fome relief from this miferable difeafe, are only childilh 

 and foolilh, but not vitious. 



But the bed way of employing his time is in arts and fciences, 

 and particularly in that moll valuable of all fciences, and which may 

 be conlidered as the foundation of every other fcience, the know- 

 ledge of his own nature, and of his intelledlual mind itfelf and its 

 operations, from which are derived logic, morals, metaphyfics, and 

 theology f. If he find himfelf unfit for ftudies of this kind, then 

 lig fliould fay with Virgil, 



Sin, has ne poflim naturae acceJere partes, 

 Frigiikis obltiterit circum praecordia fiinguis ; 

 Rura mihi, et rigui placcant in vallibus amnes, 



Flumina amem fylvafque inglorius. 



Georgic. Lib. II. V. 483. 



Let him therefore take to the country, if he have an eftate or farm 

 there, where he will find an occupation which is not at all it/glorious^ 

 but, on the contrary, I think, both honourable and profitable: I mean 

 agriculture, by which he will not only very much improve the farm 

 he cultivates, but, if he give fuitable encouragement to his tenants 

 to follow his example, his whole eftate : And by his example and 

 that of his tenants, the proprietors of other eftates in his neighbour- 

 hood and their tenants, may alfo be excited and taught to improve 

 their lands. It made a great part of the glory of the Romans, as I 



have 



* Equitare in arundine longa. Sat. Lib. II. 3. 



f See, upon this fubjecl, what I have faid in this Vol. p. 122, 223, and other paf- 

 fages there referred to. 



