268 ANT I EN T M:ET APH YSI CS. Book IIL 



live almofl. entirely by fifh *. The fea itfclf, which is the receptacle 

 of all tlic ri\ ers, and produces more fifh than all of them, we may 

 be fald to have fabdued j and to have triumphed over the winds 

 and waves in machines of fuch enormous bulk, vomiting lire and 

 fmoke, and making fuch havoc and deftrudlion at fuch a diftance, 

 that to a man unlnftruiled in our arts it would appear abfolutely 

 incredible that fuch machines, though they might have been in- . 

 vented by us, could have been governed by animals of fuch fmall 

 fize and ftrength as we are. Tlie other inferior arts of life, though 

 they do not ftrike us with fo much aftoniniment as thefe I have 

 mentioned, yet to- a philofopher muft appear very wonderful : For 

 by thefe arts we have metamorphofed the things of nature, that 

 they are not to be known except by thofe who are acquainted 

 with our arts. Thus for example, the JiJie linen of Egypt (as it 

 is very properly called in our facred books), which now is be- 

 come the common wear of all the inhabitants of Europe, who 

 could imagine to be made of a coarfe vegetable fuch as Jlax ? 

 Or that the cotton manufadure was the growth of a tree ? 

 Who could divine that the cloaths, we wear, were originally 

 the covering of flieep ; or that the filk, with which our ladies arc 

 adorned, was produced and fpun into very fine threads by a worm ? 

 Who, uninftrudVed, as I have faid, in our arts, could imagine that 

 the beer we drink was made of a vegetable, fuch as barley, which muft 

 be firft malted^ by which operation the grain may be faid to be putri- 

 Jitd^ fo that the Romans called beer, vlnuin ex corrupt'is fnigibus f j or 

 the wine, of a plant, fuch as the vine ? Or that either of thefe liquors 

 could be exalted to a fpirit producing fuch effects upon the animal 

 body, as what is produced by rum, brandy, aquavitae, and gin ? 

 Which, though they have been of no ufe to us, but, on the contrary, 

 have done, and are ftill doing, a great deal of mifchief, yet do honour 



to 



* See what I have faid upon this fubjcift in Vol. III. of this work, p. 49. 

 f See p. 142 of Vol. IV. of tliis work. 



