supported by the invincible deductions of science, thus elevate man in
his own eyes, will find grateful readers in all climes and times.

In 1775, Bailly sent the first volume of his history to Voltaire. In
thanking him for his present, the illustrious old man addressed to the
author one of those letters that he alone could write, in which
flattering and enlivening sentences were combined without effort with
high reasoning powers. "I have many thanks to return you, (said the
Patriarch of Ferney,) for having on the same day received a large book
on medicine and yours, while I was still ill; I have not opened the
first, I have already read the second almost entirely, and feel better."

Voltaire, indeed, had read Bailly's work pen in hand, and he proposed to
the illustrious astronomer some queries, which proved both his infinite
perspicacity, and wonderful variety of knowledge. Bailly then felt the
necessity of developing some ideas which in his _History of Ancient
Astronomy_ were only accessories to his principal subject. This was the
object of the volume that he published in 1776, under the title of
_Letters on the Origin of the Sciences and of the People of Asia,
addressed to M. de Voltaire_. The author modestly announced that "to
lead the reader by the interest of the style to the interest of the
question discussed," he would place at the head of his work three
letters from the author of _Merope_, and he protested against the idea
that he had been induced to play with paradoxes.

According to Bailly, the present nations of Asia are heirs of an
anterior people, who understood Astronomy perfectly. Those Chinese,
those Hindoos, so renowned for their learning, would thus have been mere
depositaries; we should have to deprive them of the title of inventors.
Certain astronomical facts, found in the annals of those southern