focial union in the abfence of publick honour and juftice, for which in evil times it is a general fubftitute, would combine them at length in communities more or less regular; laws would be proposed by a part of each community, but enacted by the whole; and governments would be variously arranged for the happiness or misery of the governed, according to their own virtue and wisdom, or depravity and folly; fo that, in lefs than three thousand years, the world would exhibit the fame appearances, which we may actually observe on it in the age of the great Ara bian impoftor.

On that part of it, to which our united refearches are generally confined, we fee five races of men peculiarly distinguished, in the time of MUHAMMED, for their multitude and extent of dominion; but we have reduced them to three, because we can discover no more, that effentially differ in language, religion, manners, and other known characteristicks: now thofe three races, how variously soever they may at prefent be difperfed and intermixed, muft (if the preceding conclufions be justly drawn) have migrated originally from a central country, to find which is the problem propofed for folution. Suppofe it folved; and give any arbitrary name to that centre: let it, if you please, be Iràn. The three primitive languages, therefore, muft at first have

been concentrated in Iran, and there only in fact we fee traces of them in the earlieft historical age; but, for the sake of greater precision, conceive the whole empire of Iran, with all its mountains and valleys, plains and rivers, to be every way infinitely diminished; the firft winding courses, therefore, of all the nations proceeding from it by land, and nearly at the same time, will be little right lines, but without interfections, because thofe courfes could not have thwarted and croffed one another: if then you confider the feats of all the migrating nations as points in a furrounding figure, you will perceive, that the feveral rays, diverging from Iran, may be drawn to them without any interfection; but this will not happen, if you affume as a centre Arabia, or Egypt; India, Tartary, or China: it follows, that Iràn, or Perfia (I contend for the meaning, not the name), was the central country, which we fought. This mode of reasoning I have adopted, not from any affectation (as you will do me the justice to believe) of a scientifick diction, but for the fake of conciseness and variety, and from a wish to avoid repetitions; the substance of my argument having been detailed in a different form at the clofe of another dif courfe; nor does the argument in any form rife to demonstration, which the queftion by no means admits: it amounts, however, to such a proof,

grounded on written evidence and credible teftimony, as all mankind hold fufficient for decifions affecting property, freedom, and life.

Thus then have we proved, that the inhabitants of Afia, and confequently, as it might be proved, of the whole earth, fprang from three branches of one stem: and that those branches have shot into their present state of luxuriance in a period comparatively short, is apparent from a fact univerfally acknowledged, that we find no certain monument, or even probable tradition, of nations planted, empires and ftates raised, laws enacted, cities built, navigation improved, commerce encouraged, arts invented, or letters contrived, above twelve or at most fifteen or fixteen centuries before the birth of CHRIST, and from another fact, which cannot be controverted, that seven hundred or a thousand years would have been fully adequate to the fuppofed propagation, diffufion and establishment of the human race.

The most ancient hiftory of that race, and the oldest compofition perhaps in the world, is a work in Hebrew, which we may fuppofe at firft, for the fake of our argument, to have no higher authority than any other work of equal antiquity, that the researches of the curious had accidentally brought to light: it is afcribed to MUSAH; for fo he writes his own name, which,

after the Greeks and Romans, we have changed into MOSES; and, though it was manifeftly his object to give an historical account of a single family, he has introduced it with a fhort view of the primitive world, and his introduction has been divided, perhaps improperly, into eleven chapters. After describing with awful fublimity the creation of this universe, he afferts, that one pair of every animal fpecies was called from nothing into existence; that the human pair were strong enough to be happy, but free to be miferable; that, from delufion and temerity, they disobeyed their fupreme benefactor, whofe goodnefs could not pardon them confiftently with his juftice; and that they received a punishment adequate to their difobedience, but foftened by a mysterious promife to be accomplished in their defcendants, We cannot but believe, on the fuppofition juft made of a history uninspired, that these facts were delivered by tradition from the first pair, and related by MOSES in a figurative ftyle; not in that fort of allegory, which rhetoricians defcribe as a mere affemblage of metaphors, but in the fymbolical mode of writing adopted by eastern fages, to embellifh and dignify hiftorical truth; and, if this were a time for fuch illuftrations, we might produce the fame account of the creation and the fall, expreffed by fymbols very nearly fimilar, from the Puránas

themselves, and even from the Veda, which appears to stand next in antiquity to the five books of MOSES.

The sketch of antediluvian history, in which we find many dark paffages, is followed by the narrative of a deluge, which deftroyed the whole race of man, except four pairs; an historical fact admitted as true by every nation, to whofe literature we have accefs, and particularly by the ancient Hindus, who have allotted an entire Purána to the detail of that event, which they relate, as ufual, in fymbols or allegories. I concur moft heartily with thofe, who infist, that, in proportion as any fact mentioned in history seems repugnant to the course of nature, or, in one word, miraculous, the ftronger evidence is required to induce a rational belief of it; but we hear without incredulity, that cities have been overwhelmed by eruptions from burning mountains, territories laid wafte by hurricanes, and whole iflands depopulated by earthquakes: if then we look at the firmament fprinkled with innumerable ftars; if we conclude by a fair analogy, that every star is a fun, attracting, like ours, a system of inhabited planets; and if our ardent fancy, foaring hand in hand with found reafon, waft us beyond the visible sphere into regions of immensity, difclofing other celeftial expanfes and other systems of funs and worlds on all fides