Chap. ir. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 297 



plains of Tartary ; or, laftly, they live in a political ftate, which 

 may be called their civil fociety : And it is in this lafl: way that Bees, 

 Ants, and Beavers live*. But in whichever of thefe ways the brute 

 lives, he lives in the way that God and Nature has appointed he 

 fhould live ; — a way very different from that in which men in civil 

 fociety live; for, as man has made for himfelf a new nature, diflerent 

 from that which God beftowed upon him, fo he has alfo made to 

 himfelf a new way of living, different from that in which he was 

 deftined by God and Nature to live and in which the antedeluvians 

 lived, who lived each of them feveral hundred years without being 

 liable to any difeafe as far as we know, and different likewife from the 

 manner of life of the favage nations at this day. The unnatural life 

 I mean the reader will underftand to be that in which houles and 

 clothes are ufed ; — for food, lifli and flefli j — and for drink, wine 

 and ftrong liquors of different kinds and even fpirits. Such a life, fo 

 different from the natural life of man, muft neceffarily produce many 

 difeafes and much weaknefs and fhortnefs of life : And, as thefe are 

 increafmg in every generation, I am more and more convinced of 

 what I have maintained in a preceding volume of this work f, that 

 there will be an end of the human fpecies in the civilized nations of 

 Europe in not very many generations ; and indeed It would be 

 contrary to Nature and to the order of things in the univerfe, if, in 

 a way of living fo different from that which God and Nature has 

 appointed, the race of man lliould laft for any very long time. 



How different the life of the brutes is, who live in the natural 

 ftate and not houfed nor under the dominion of men, is well 

 known. There is one race of them who live upon fleHi, I mean 

 the beafts of prey ; which, we ihould think, was an objedion to the 

 goodnefs of God, who has produced animals that cannot live with- 

 VoL. VI. P p out 



• Of the polity of the Beaver, fee Vol. III. p. 5.}. 

 t Vol. V. Chap. laft. 



