instruments, well contrived and divided, by which they very accurately
compute the course and positions of the sun, moon, and stars. But for
the cheat of divining by the stars, by their oppositions or conjunctions,
it has not so much as entered into their thoughts. They have a
particular sagacity, founded upon much observation, in judging of the
weather, by which they know when they may look for rain, wind, or other
alterations in the air; but as to the philosophy of these things, the
cause of the saltness of the sea, of its ebbing and flowing, and of the
original and nature both of the heavens and the earth, they dispute of
them partly as our ancient philosophers have done, and partly upon some
new hypothesis, in which, as they differ from them, so they do not in all
things agree among themselves.

"As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them as we
have here. They examine what are properly good, both for the body and
the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly _good_, or if
that term belong only to the endowments of the soul. They inquire,
likewise, into the nature of virtue and pleasure. But their chief
dispute is concerning the happiness of a man, and wherein it
consists--whether in some one thing or in a great many. They seem,
indeed, more inclinable to that opinion that places, if not the whole,
yet the chief part, of a man's happiness in pleasure; and, what may seem
more strange, they make use of arguments even from religion,
notwithstanding its severity and roughness, for the support of that
opinion so indulgent to pleasure; for they never dispute concerning
happiness without fetching some arguments from the principles of religion
as well as from natural reason, since without the former they reckon that
all our inquiries after happiness must be but conjectural and defective.

"These are their religious principles:--That the soul of man is immortal,