rude people were ignorant: such were the Bacchus's, the Orpheus's, the
Triptolemus's, the Numa's, the Zamolixis's; in short, all those who
first gave to nations their gods--their worship--the rudiments of
agriculture, of science, of superstition, of jurisprudence, of religion,
&c.

It will perhaps be enquired, If those nations which at the present day
we see assembled, were all originally dispersed? We reply, that this
dispersion may have been produced at various times, by those terrible
revolutions, of which it has before been remarked our globe has more
than once been the theatre; in times so remote, that history has not
been able to transmit us the detail. Perhaps the approach of more than
one comet may have produced on our earth several universal ravages,
which have at each time annihilated the greater portion of the human
species.

These hypotheses will unquestionably appear bold to those who have not
sufficiently meditated on nature, but to the philosophic enquirer they
are by no means inconsistent. There may not only have been one general
deluge, but even a great number since the existence of our planet; this
globe itself may have been a new production in nature; it may not always
have occupied the place it does at present. Whatever idea may be adopted
on this subject, if it is very certain that, independent of those
exterior causes, which are competent to totally change its face, as the
impulse of a comet may do, this globe contains within itself, a cause
adequate to alter it entirely, since, besides the diurnal and sensible
motion of the earth, it has one extremely slow, almost imperceptible, by
which every thing must eventually be changed in it: this is the motion
from whence depends the _precession_ of the _equinoctial points_,
observed by _Hipparchus_ and other mathematicians, now well understood