Chap. II. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 305 



ply ; and accordingly he has increafed and multiplied (o much, that 

 we do not hear of any part of the earth, not even an ifland in the 

 great ocean, of any fize, that is not more or lefs peopled. In 

 Europe we have an ifland, I mean Iceland, and a great country, viz. 

 Greenland, which is ftill more than Iceland, exlra armi foUfque viat; 

 and yet both are peopled. And indeed it appears evidently to be 

 the defign of Providence, that every part of the earth ftiould be 

 peopled, and that men fhould have an opportunity every where of 

 forming themfelves into focieties, and thereby acquiring the ufe of 

 intellect, and fo making fome progrefs towards regaining their prior 

 ftate. But without altering the nature of things, which, as 1 have 

 faid in more than one place, it is impoflible that even God can do, 

 the earth could not have produced in every country, which men were 

 to inhabit, the moft natural and bed food for men : So that it was of 

 abfolute necefllty that they fhould have fuch food only as the coun- 

 try afforded ; and, where it could not give them the beft food, fuch 

 as corn, that they fhould be contented to eat flefli or fifh, or what 

 elfe the country produced that man can live upon; and, even in 

 ELgypt, where corn was raifed in the greateft plenty, yet, as I have 

 fhown, men multiplied fo much, that they were obliged to eat both 

 fifh and flefh, and, befides, to bring up their children upon the reeds 

 which grew in the river. 



I continue therefore flill of opinion that the moft natural and the 

 beft food of man is the herbs, and the feeds of herbs, produced by 

 the earth ; and that in every country, where that food can be got, it 

 fhould be ufed and only ufed by man. As to drink, the natural 

 drink of man, and of all other animals, is water. I hold, however, 

 that water without wine is not good, nor wine without water ; an 

 opinion, in which I am fupported, if not by canonical Scripture, at leaft 

 by Apocrypha * : For a mixture of wine certainly cures the raw- 

 VoL. VI. I (^q nefs 



* II Maccabees, v. laft. 



