obliges them to cultivate what remains with double industry, in order to procure food for themselves. The populoufnefs of their country contributes alfo to make them induftrious. Aragon was once the most limited monarchy in Europe, England not excepted: the barrenness of the foil was the caufe, which rendered the people hardy and courageous. In a preamble to one of their laws, the states declare, that were they not more free than other nations, the barrennefs of their country would tempt them to abandon it. Opposed to Aragon ftands Egypt, the fertility of which renders the inhabitants foft and effeminate, and confequently an eafy prey to every invader *. The fruitfulness

of

*Fear impreffed by ftrange and unforeseen accidents, is the most potent cause of fuperftition. No other country is lefs liable to ftrange and unforeseen accidents than Egypt: no thunder, fcarce any rain, perfect regularity in the feafons, and in the rife and fall of the river. So little notion had the Egyptians of variable weather, as to be furprifed that the rivers in Greece did not overflow like the Nile. They could not comprehend how their fields were watered: rain, they said, was very irregular; and what if Jupiter fhould take a conceit to fend them no rain? What then made the antient Egyptians fo fuperstitious

VOL. I.

3 R

of the province of Quito in Peru, and the low price of every neceffary, occafioned by its distance from the fea, have plunged the inhabitants into fupine indolence, and exceffive luxury. The people of the town of Quito in particular, have abandoned themselves to every fort of debauchery: the time they have to fpare from wine and women, is employed in exceffive gaming. In other refpects alfo the manners of a people are influenced by the country they inhabit. A great part of Calabria, formerly populous and fertile, is at present covered with trees and fhrubs, like the wilds of America; and the ferocity of its inhabitants corresponds to the rudeness of the fields. The fame is vifible in the inhabitants of Mount Etna in Sicily: the country and its inhabitants are equally rugged.

tious? The fertility of the foil, and the inaction of the inhabitants during the inundation of the river, enervated both mind and body, and rendered them timid and pufillanimous. Superftition was the offfpring of this character in Egypt, as it is of ftrange and unforeseen accidents in other countries.

END of the FIRST VOLUME.