Remarks on the influence of climate, situation, nature of country, population, nature of food, and way of life, on the disposition and temper, manners and behaviour, intellects, laws and customs, form of government, and religion, of mankind / by William Falconer, M.D.F.R.S.

  • William Falconer
Date:
1781
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of climate, situation, nature of country, population, nature of food, and way of life, on the disposition and temper, manners and behaviour, intellects, laws and customs, form of government, and religion, of mankind / by William Falconer, M.D.F.R.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    Epi£letus cenfures the fame fedl -f* for having taught the youth to contemn the gods, to defpife juftice, to have no fenfe of fhame, and to J difregard the filial and paternal obligations, and thofe which unite men to one another. [] Theft was with them no otherwife an objecfl of difapprobation, than from its being liable to dif- covery. In Ihort, thefe principles, as they encourage all forts of crimes, are juftly pronounced by Epidletus to be equally de- flrud:ive to public and private virtue. The ancient Romans were particularly fenfible of the evil con- fequences of thofe dodrines of the Epicureans that refpe6ted re- ligion. Fabritius wilhed Pyrrhus and the Samnites to hold the notions of this fedl concerning the gods, as long as they were at war with the Romans. Their ideas concerning the nature of the Deity, and the utility of religion to the well-being and profperity of the Rate, were diredtly oppofite to thofe embraced by thefe philofophers. Dionyfms * HalicarnafiTenfis attributes moR of the misfortunes that befel the republic, to the impiety or contempt of the gods that prevailed at that time; and exprefsly mentions, that the virtue upon which the Romans chiefly valued themfelves, which was the rigid obfervance of public faith, was in a g'*eat meafure owing to the religious ceremonies inRituted by ^ Numa, which,'the fame author obferves, could not fail in time to communi- cate the fame fidelity to the behaviour of private men.” Thefe fentiments tended much to infpire that people with an abhorrence of that fed: of philofophy that gave mean ideas of the deities, and Teprefented them as unconcerned about the affairs of men. Dionyfius §, on that account, will not allow the Epicureans the name of philofophers; and mentions them with the greateR t EpiRet. book ii. ch. 20. § 4. J Ibid, book Hi. ch. 7. § i. I Ibid, book iii. ch. 7. § 2. * Dionyf. Halic. book ii. ch. 75.—Livii —Valer. Maxim, ad ink., § Book ii. ch. 67. 4 A contempt