speaking of inert matter only, but of the whole system of things as we see it. For if it be admitted that any part of the system is not eternal, then the whole hypothesis falls to the ground. Either all is eternal, or we have no reason to conclude that any part is so. But how can the human race be eternal? I exist; but I do not necessarily exist, for once I was not. I did not bring myself into existence. My parents were not their own creators and although I go back as far as the wing of imagination can bear me, still I am as unable satisfactorily to account for the existence of those whom I then find alive, as I am to account for my own existence, or for the existence of those who have lived at any intermediate period. By going backward I remove the difficulty from one point to another; but still, at any given point, that difficulty is just the same as when it first met me. According, however, to the constitution of my nature, I cannot rest satisfied till I come either to a self-created or to a necessarily existing being. But a self-created being involves a contradiction. It involves existence and non-existence at the same time. I must, therefore, arrive at a necessarily existing, and consequently eternal being, as the first cause of my own existence.

Thus I think, that according to the constitution of my nature, I must either believe in an eternal and intelligent first cause; or, in something at least equally incomprehensible, and also altogether absurd. To talk of an infinite succession of beings such as man, is merely an unphilosophical attempt to push out of sight the difficulty of accounting for our first formation: but that difficulty it in no degree removes. For, according to this hypothesis, how high soever we ascend, we find no animated being but what has derived its existence from a being of the same kind with itself. Still we meet with plain marks of design; but the designing cause we have not found. Contrivance is obvious; but the contriving mind which must have existed before the contrivance, we have not discovered. It may be added, that the speculations of those who have attempted to trace the vestiges of the human race to a very remote antiquity have not been successful. There is no reason to believe that men have existed on the earth above six or seven thousand years.

Our globe has undergone some great revolutions. This the structure of its parts, and the organic remains found in it, clearly prove. But these revolutions were antecedent to the race of Adam. of human beings.

The organic remains indicate no traces Neither reason nor revelation require us

to believe, that the matter of this world was first called into existence at the time of the creation mentioned in the Jewish Scriptures. It may have existed before in different forms, and may have undergone many changes. But having been deranged and reduced to a chaotic mass by some mighty catastrophe, it was then fitted up for the reception of new inhabitants and the exhibition of new scenes, and was subjected to laws adapted to the new order of things.

Geological speculations can never be successfully employed in ascertaining the antiquity of the human race; for how shall we determine the state of matter when our globe was first subjected to the operation of those laws under which it now exists? To apply the result of observations on the present order of nature to a state of things anterior to, and perhaps altogether different from the present system, can lead to no correct conclusions. In an investigation of this kind, the very first point to be ascertained is, the state of matter when the present system of laws began to operate: a point which no human industry or ingenuity can ascertain; and without which, any speculations on this subject, with a view to determine the antiquity of the world, are mere illusions. Nay, from the phenomena of the existing system, rash and hasty conclusions may be drawn, which, although at first sight plausible, will not bear the test of examination. The argument of Recupero, founded on the lavas of Etna, might have been considered decisive, had not the ruins of Herculaneum demonstrated its fallacy.

The astronomical arguments which have been adduced on this subject are as deceitful and unsatisfactory as those of a geological kind. Astronomy is incomparably the more advanced of the two sciences; but the history of astronomy is imperfect, and on some points very uncertain. Much has been said of the high antiquity of the Indian astronomical tables; but the eloquence of Bailly and the science of Playfair have not succeeded in proving them to be founded on observation. There is good reason to believe that they were formed by computation. This is the opinion of La Place, and it is strongly supported by the arguments of Bentley. The probability is that Indian science, instead of being of high antiquity, was derived from the Arabians, through the Greeks and Persians. According to Montucla, the distinguished historian of science, the most ancient Chinese observations are 2155 years before the Christian era; being, according to Usher's chronology, about 160 years before the birth of the patriarch Abraham. If the Fohi of the Chinese be the Noah

of the Hebrew Scriptures, he may have transported into that country the faint lights of antediluvian science.*

An argument in favour of the high antiquity of the human race has been founded on the zodiacs in the temples of Latopolis and Tentyra, two ancient cities in the Upper Egypt. This argument rests on a great astronomical fac the precession of the equinoxes. The equinoctial and solstitial points do not invariably occupy the same places in the ecliptic, but have a retrograde motion of about 50" in a year; by which they will accomplish a revolution in about 25,750 years. Now, in the zodiac of Latopolis, the modern Esneh, Leo, we are told, is represented as the last of the ascending signs, and it has been stated that a sphinx there represents the sun at the summer solstice, just in the point where the last degree of Leo meets the first degree of Virgo. But at present the colure of the summer solstice is in the first degree of Gemini; and therefore it has been inferred, that as the space between the first degree of Gemini and the last degree of Leo, is to the whole of the ecliptic, so must the period elapsed since the construction of the zodiac of Latopolis be to 25,750 years. This inference would no doubt be consequentially drawn, if it were proved that the above was a true explanation of the zodiac of Latopolis, and that that zodiac was a correct picture of the heavens at the time of its formation. But on these points doubts and suspicions crowd in upon us. Plutarch and Macrobius would have been surprised and amused to hear the sphinx spoken of as an emblem of the sun. Egyptians, it is true, worshipped that luminary under different names and symbols; but the sphinx was not one of them. To imagine then that this symbol represents the sun, is a gratuitous and unauthorized assumption.

The

Besides, there is no good reason to believe that the zodiac of Latopolis was a correct picture of the heavens at the time of its formation. Although we allow the highest praise to the genius and industry of ancient astronomers, yet it cannot be denied that their instruments were rude and clumsy, and many of their observations inaccurate. They erred more than half a degree in the latitude of Syené, a place at no great distance from Latopolis; and does this encourage the pre

* The curious reader may consult a Dissertation on Hindoo Astronomy, by Professor Wallace, in the 8th volume of the Edinburgh Cabinet Library.

sumption that they were qualified to give a correct delineation of the zodiac? The Egyptians were moreover very vain, and boasted of a high antiquity. After the days of Hipparchus, might they not give false representations of the heavens with a view to countenance and encourage this vanity? It may be remarked, that the decorations of the Egyptian temples are not of the same antiquity with the temples themselves.

Farther, in the zodiac of Tentyra, the modern Dendera, Leo is not represented as the last of the ascending, but as the first of the descending signs. Does not this show that one, if not both of those zodiacs, is posterior to the time of Hipparchus? For if one of those zodiacs represents Leo as the last of the ascending, and the other as the first of the descending signs, was not this (supposing those zodiacs to be correct) a demonstration that the solstitial, and consequently the equinoctial points are moveable? But this, as is well known, was the grand discovery of Hipparchus; a discovery in no degree owing to the zodiacs of Latopolis and Tentyra, but made by comparing his own observations with those of Aristyllus and Timochares about 150 years before. Hipparchus diligently inquired into all the observations of Chaldean and Egyptian astronomers; but although it is probable that the former of those nations cultivated astronomy before the latter, yet he could find no observations that had been made at Babylon, previous to the reign of Nabonassar, 747 years before Christ. Berosus, a Chaldean, who lived about 300 years before the Christian era, knew of no monuments of Chaldean astronomy more ancient than 480 years before his own time and neither Hipparchus nor Ptolemy ever heard of observations for 1903 years transmitted by Callisthenes to Aristotle, about the year 331 before Christ. Simplicius, a peripatetic philosopher, and commentator on Aristotle, who lived in the sixth century of the Christian era, makes mention of such observations; but his authority and that of Porphyry, from whom he borrowed the story, are too modern to be entitled to any regard. In short, these Egyptian zodiacs were unknown to Hipparchus; and if they had existed in his time, would they have escaped the notice of that careful observer and indefatigable inquirer? Would he not have appealed to them, as well as to the observations of Aristyllus and Timochares, in proof of the precession of the equinoxes? But it is needless to dwell longer on the subject, for there is no evidence that the Egyptians had zodiacs, with our signs

and names, before the establishment of the Greeks in that country.*

It has been said that all things sprung from necessity. Necessity, however, is not an agent, but the state or condition of an agent; and if they who use the word, in the sense under consideration, attach any distinct conceptions to their language, they must by it understand an agent acting necessarily. But an agent acting necessarily is in reality no agent, but merely an instrument in the hand of another. Such, however, is the constitution of our nature that we cannot rest satisfied till we find a being operating not by necessity but by will and choice. We must find an efficient cause that had power to give or not to give existence to every creature. Necessity must result from something antecedent to itself.

Some persons talk of appetency. What do they mean by the word? Is it chemical affinity? If it be so, we understand the signification of the language, but cannot conceive with what propriety it is introduced on the present occasion. Has chemical affinity ever formed an organized being? If any person hazard the affirmative, let him produce an example: this he cannot do. But appetency, it may be said, is an endeavour perpetually and imperceptibly working its effects through a long succession of generations. We know that the perennial mountain stream operates insensibly, and in the course of ages hollows out a channel in the rock; but we know of no such operation producing either a plant or an animal.

To talk, as some have talked, of "Nature forming the first rudiments of organization, or spontaneous generations, which, gradually in a long series of ages and under the modifying influence of different circumstances, appear in all the organized forms which exist on the earth," is, to say the least of it, something that requires explanation, or that cannot be proved. What are we to understand by Nature? The word may be used figuratively for the Author of Nature: or it may mean that order and constitution of things which the Supreme Intelligence has established and maintains. In this last sense, it is of the same import with the Laws of Nature. Now, to talk of the laws of nature, to the exclusion of an

* Dr. Richardson, in his Travels, thinks it requires a good deal of imagination to make the drawings in these temples zodiacs; and some late interpreters of the hieroglyphics make them the work of Roman emperors.