kill or catch them; for, among fuch men, war is a kind of hunting*. In this ftate, man, if not tamed, or fubdued by laws or manners, is the most dangerous and moft mischievous. of all the creatures that God has made; much more fo than any lion or tiger, or any other the fierceft animal that roams the foreft. It was in this ftate that Orpheus, the first civilizer of men in this western part of the world, found the favages of Greece, when he imported among them the arts he had learned in Egypt, and tamed them by religion and mufic,

Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres rabidofque leones t;

It is fo at this day in many parts of the earth; and, I am perfuaded, it was fo originally among all nations after they became hunters and flefh-eaters. In the language of the Iroquois of North America, to put on the cauldron, is to declare war, as Charlevoix informs us. And, as late as the days of Gabriel Sagard, who travelled in the country of the Hurons in 1630, these people were ftill in the practice of boiling their enemies in a great 217. of his travels.

cauldron, and feafting upon them; p.

And, though thofe hunters have given over eating their enemics, it is certain, there is nothing in which they delight fo much as blood and flaughter.

+ Silveftres homines facer interprefque deorum Cadibus et VICTU FOEDO deterruit Orpheus: Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres rabidofque leones.

HOR. Art. Poet. 392.

which is one of the fictions of the Greek poets, where the truth of history is easily seen through the vail of fable.

СНА Р. X.

What Dangers made Men affociate for the fake of Self-defence.

MA

AN, in the natural ftate, must stand in need of defence, either against wild beafts, against men of the fame country, or, laftly, against foreign invaders.

As to the first, those who know no more of the history of man than what they have learned from obferving the cuftoms and manners of their own and other modern nations of Europe, will hardly believe, that there was a time when the wild beafts difputed

Where the foedus viftus is no doubt the eating one another; from which, among other barbarous cuftoms, Orpheus reclaimed them.

with us the empire of this earth: But nothing is more certain,

1

Tempora fi faftofque velis evolvere mundi.

HOR.

And it is likewife certain, that they very often prevailed in the difpute, till art and numbers came to the affiftance of our natural ftrength and agility. And, therefore, the first heroes, and greatest benefactors of mankind, next to the inventors of arts, were those men of superior strength and valour, who fought with and deftroyed wild beasts. Such was Hercules of old: I mean, not the Greek Hercules, the fon of Amphitryon, who came too late into the world to have much business of that kind; but the Egyptian Hercules, feveral thousand years older, whose exploits the Greeks, with their ufual vanity, ascribed to their hero, who was indeed originally from that country, and from thence probably had his name *. The arms which the la

*He had at firft another name, which I have forgot; but afterwards his parents, who were both originally from Egypt, thought proper to give him the name of the Egyptian god. See Herodotus, lib. 2. cap. 43. et 44. who tells us, that, in order to settle the point of antiqui

ter Greek fables (for they are not fo old as A Homer *) give to this hero, were very probably the arms of his antient namesake of Egypt; I mean the club, and the lion's skin, these being the only arms then known. But experience would foon difcover, that it was necessary to have other and better arms against enemies fo much fuperior in bodily

ty betwixt the Egyptian and Grecian Hercules, he made two voyages, one to Tyre, the other to Thafus; in each of which places there was a temple of Hercules, both long prior to the fon of Alcmena: From whence he very juftly concludes, that thefe temples were erected to the Egyptian Hercules. Such was the curiofity and diligence of this hiftorian, who had fo little of the vanity of his countrymen, that in this, and several other inftances, he was at uncommon pains to refute their vain lies.

* According to this poet, he wore neither lion's kin nor club, but was armed with a bow and arrows; and fo he is introduced among the other fpirits which appeared to Ulyffes, in the 11th book of the Odyfey, verf.606. And, upon this occafion, it may be obferved, that a great deal of the Greek fables and religion is pofterior to the days of Homer: For, in his time, neither this Hercules, the fon of Alcmena, was worshipped, nor Caftor and Pollux. And Bacchus, who became fo great a god afterwards, is, I think, but once mentioned in Homer, and that in a way that does him no honour; for he is reprefented as running away from Lycurgus, the King of Thrace, and hiding himself in the ocean.

strength *; and that it was also necessary × to avail themselves of their numbers, and to act together in concert, both in attacking and defending. And this I hold to be one kind

Even after arms were invented in Greece, and the ufe of them well known, the Caledonian boar was destroyed with much difficulty, and not till he had killed a great many of the nobleft youth of Greece, as Homer informs us, Iliad, ix. 542. And, in much later times, as late as the days of Cræfus King of Lydia, a boar laid waste the lands of the Myfians, a people of Asia, in the neighbourhood of Crafus; and they not being able to deftroy him themfelves, sent to Crœfus for affistance; who accordingly fent them his fon, at the head of a chofen body of hunters, Herod. lib. 1. cap. 36. I know the mere modern reader will reject all these ftories as fables, and will not even believe Paufanias, who fays, that he faw a tusk of the Caledonian boar, which was preferved as late down as his time, and of which he gives us the dimenfions, lib. 8. cap. 45. But the learned will have no doubt of the truth of either of the ftories, knowing well, that even what is called the fabulous hiftory of Greece, is for the greater part true history; mixed indeed with many romantic circumstances and fuperftitious tales, which a little fagacity and critical difcernment can easily separate from the truth of history. As to Herodotus, though, I know, his authority is by many thought no better than that of Homer, and the other Greek poets, yet I will venture to affirm, that whoever understands his hiftory, and has diligently ftudied it, will hardly doubt of what he relates, not as a hearsay, (for he has many stories of that kind which he tells us he does not believe himself), but as a fimple hiftorical fact. As to this article, concerning the difficulty of mens VOL. I. Cc