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ftopped by them, and that to them should appertain the fole Poffeffion of our future Belief? They are no more exempt from being thruft out of Doors than their Predeceffors were. When any one preffes me with a new Argument, I ought to believe, that what I cannot answer, another can; for to believe all Likelihoods, that a Man cannot confute, is great Simplicity: It would, by that Means, come to pafs, that all the Vulgar (and we are all of the Vulgar) would have their Belief as changeable as a Weather-cock: For the Soul, being fo eafy to be impofed upon, and fo Non-refifting, muft, of Force, inceffantly receive Impreffions, the laft ftill effacing all Traces of that which went before. He that finds himself weak, ought to answer according to modern Practice, that he will speak with his Council, or refer himself to the Sages, from whom he received his Instruction. How long is it that Phyfic has been practifed in the World? 'Tis faid, that a new Comer, called Paracelfus, changes and overthrows the whole Order of ancient Rules, and maintains, that, till now, it has been of no other Ufe, but to kill Men. I do believe, that he will easily make this good; but I do not think it were great Wisdom to venture my Life in making Trial of his new Experience. We are not to believe every one (fays the Precept) because every one can fay all Things.' A Man of this Profeffion of Novelties and phyfical Reformations, not long fince, told me, That all the Ancients were notoriously mifta

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ken in the Nature and Motions of the Winds, which he • would evidently demonftrate to me, if I would give him 'the Hearing.' After I had, with fome Patience, heard his Arguments, which were all full of Probability: • What then, faid I, did thofe that failed according to the Rules of Theophraftus, make Way Weftward, when they had the Prow towards the Eaft? Did they go fideward or backward? That's as it happened, anfwered be; but fo it is, that they were mistaken.' I then replied, ' that I had rather be governed by Facts than Reafon. Now, these are Things that often clash, and I have been told, that, in Geometry (which pretends to have gained the highest Point of Certainty of all Science) there

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are Demonstrations so inevitable, as fubvert the Truth of all Experience. As Jaques Pelletier told me, at my own House, that he had found out two Lines, ftretching one ⚫ towards the other to meet, which, nevertheless, he affirmed, tho' extended to all Infinity, could never happen to touch one another:' And the Pyrrbonians make no other Ufe of their Arguments and their Reason, than to ruin the Appearance of Experience; and 'tis a Wonder, how far the Suppleness of our Reafon has followed them in this Defign of controverting the Evidence of Facts For they affirm, that we do not move, that we do not speak, and that there is neither Weight nor Heat,' with the fame Force of Argument, that we verify the most likely Things. Ptolemy, who was a great Man, had established the Bounds of this World of ours; and all the ancient Philofophers thought they had the Measure of it, excepting fome ftraggling Inlands, that might escape their Knowledge. It had been Pyrrhonifm, a thousand Years ago, to doubt of the Science of Cofmography, and of the Opinions that every one had thence received: It was Herefy to believe there were Antipodes; and, behold, in this Age of ours, there is an infinite Extent of firm Land difcovered, not an Island, or a particular Country, but a Part almost as great as that we knew before. The Geographers of our Time stick not to affure us, that now all is found, and all is feen:

Nam quod adeft præfto, placet, et pollere videtur *.

i. e.

What prefent is, does please, and feems the beft. But I would fain know, whether, if Ptolemy was therein formerly deceived, upon the Foundation of his Reason, it were not Folly in me to truft now in what these People say; and whether it is not more likely, that this great Body, which we call the World, is quite another Thing, than what we imagine.

Plato fays, That it changes Countenance in all Refpects: That the Heavens, the Stars, and the Sun,

* Lucret. lib. v. v. 1411.

have,

Several Opi

nions concerning the World.

have, all of them fometimes, Motions retrograde to what we fee, changing East into Weft.' The Egyptian Priests told Herodotus, That, from the • Time of their first King, which was Eleven • thousand and odd Years, (and they fhewed him the Effigies of all their Kings, in Statues, taken "from the Life) the Sun had, four times, altered his Course That the Sea and the Earth did, alternately, change into one another; and that the Beginning of the World is undetermined, which is also faid by Arifto• tle and Cicero :' And fome, amongst us, are of Opinion, that it has been from all Eternity, is mortal, and • renewed again by feveral Viciffitudes; calling Solomon and Ifaiah to witness, in order to evade the Objections, that God was once a Creator without a Creature; that he had then nothing to do; that, to counteract fuch Vacancy, he put his Hand to this Work; and that, confequently, he is fubject to Change. In the most famous of the Greek Schools, the World is taken for a God, made by another God, who is greater, and compofed of a Body, and of a Soul, fixed in its Center, and dilating itself, by mufical Numbers, to its Circumference: Divine, moft Happy, moft Great, most Wife, and Eternal. In him are other Gods, the Sea, the Earth, the Stars, who entertain one another with a harmonious and perpetual Agitation and divine Dance; fometimes meeting, fometimes retiring from one another; concealing and discovering themselves, changing their Order, one while before, and another behind. Heraclitus was pofitive, That the • World was composed of Fire, and, by the Order of the • Destinies, was, one Day, to be inflamed and confumed in Fire, and then to be again renewed.' And 'Apuleius fays of Men: Sigillatim mortales, cunetim perpetui. That they are Mortal in particular, and Immortal in general." Alexander fent his Mother the Narrative of an Egyptian Priest, drawn from their Monuments, teftifying the Antiquity of that Nation to be infinite, and containing the

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y Herodot. lib. ii. p. 163, 164.

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2 Diog. Laert. in the Life of Heraclitus, lib. ix. fect. 8.

a

Apuleius, in his Tract de Deo Socratis.

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true Birth and Progrefs of other Countries. Cicero and
Diodorus fay, That, in their Time, the Chaldees kept a
Register of Four hundred thousand and odd Years.' A-
riftotle, Pliny, and others, that Zoroafter flourished Six
thousand Years before Plato's Time.' Plato fays,
That the City of Sais has Records in Writing of Eight-
• thousand Years; and that the City of Athens was built
a thousand Years before the faid City of Sais.' Epicu-
rus, that, at the fame Time Things are here in the Pof-
· ture we fee, they are alike, and in the fame Manner in
• feveral other Worlds: Which he would have delivered
with greater Affurance, had he feen the Similitude and
Concordance of the new-difcovered World of the Weft-
Indies, with ours, prefent and past, in such strange In-
stances. In Reality, confidering what is arrived at our
Knowledge of the Course of this terreftrial Polity, I have
often wondered to fee, in fo vaft a Distance of Places
and Times, fuch a Concurrence of fo great a Number of
popular and wild Opinions, and of favage Manners and
Articles of Faith, which, by no Means, feem to proceed
from our natural Reason. The human Understanding is
a great Worker of Miracles. But this Relation has,
moreover, I know not, what of Extraordinary in it, even
in Names, and a thousand other Things: For they found
Nations there, (that, for aught we know, never heard of
us) where Circumcifion was in Ufe; where
Circumcifion.
there were States and Civil Governments
maintained by Women only, without Men; where our
Fafts and Lent were reprefented, to which was added the
Abftinence from Women; where our Croffes were, feve-
ral ways, in Repute; where they were made Ufe of to
honour their Sepultures; where they were erected, and,
namely, that of St. Andrew, to protect them-
felves from Nocturnal Vifions, and to lay
upon the Cradles of Infants against Inchant-
ments: In fome Places there was found one of Wood,
of a very great Height, which was adored for the God of

Plin. Nat. Hift. lib. xxx. c. 1.

St. Andrew's

Crofs.

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A Crofs adored for the God of

Rain.

Rain; and this was a great Way up in the Main Land, where there were seen a very clear Image of our fhriving Priests, with the Ufe of Mitres, the Celibacy of Priests, the Art of Divination by the Entrails of facrificed Animals, Abftinence from all Sorts of Flesh and Fish in their Diet, the Form for Priests officiating in a particular, and not the vulgar Language: And this Fancy, that the first God was ex-pelled by a fecond, his younger Brother; that they were

The Creation of the World.

created with all Sorts of Accommodations,

which have fince been taken from them for their Sins, their Territory changed, and their natural Condition made worse: That they were, of Old, drowned by an Inundation of Water from Heaven; that but few Families escaped, who retired into Caves of highMountains, the Mouths of which they stopped, so that the Waters could not get in, having fhut up, together with themselves, several Sorts of Animals; that, when they perceived the Rain to cease, they sent out Dogs, which returning clean and wet, they judged, that the Water was not yet much abated; but afterwards fending out others, and seeing them return dirty, they iffued out to re-people the World, which they found only full of Serpents. Inone Place it appeared, they were perfuaded The Day of of a Day of Judgment; infomuch that they Judgment. were marvellously displeased at the Spaniards for difcompofing the Bones of the Dead, in rifling the Graves for Riches, faying, that thofe Bones, so scattered, could not easily be rejoined. They traffick by Exchange, and no other Way, with Fairs and Markets for that End: Dwarfs at the Dwarfs, and deformed People, for the OrnaTables of ment of the Tables of their Princes: The Princes. Ufe of Falconry, according to the Nature of their Birds; tyrannical Subfidies, fine Gardens, Dances, tumbling Tricks, and Juggling Inftruments of Mufic, Armories, Tennis-playing, Dice, and Lotteries, wherein they are fometimes fo eager and hot, as to stake and play away themselves, and their Liberty; Phyfic, no otherwife than by Charms :

Divers Sorts of
Games.

I

The

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