water flowing in from the, original ocean, and which then covered the
earth, would much contribute to leave the continents and islands, which
might be raised at the same time, above the surface of the water. In
later days we have accounts of huge stones falling, from the firmament,
which may have been thrown by explosion from some distant earthquake,
without having been impelled with a force sufficient to cause them to
circulate round the earth, and thus produce numerous small moons or
satellites.

Those who were able to escape from the ruin of the world, filled with
consternation, plunged in misery, were but little conditioned to
preserve to their posterity a knowledge, effaced by those misfortunes,
of which they had been both the victims and the witnesses: overwhelmed
with dismay, trembling with fear, they were not able to hand down the
history of their frightful adventures, except by obscure traditions;
much less to transmit to us the opinions, the systems, the arts, the
sciences, anterior to these petrifying revolutions of our sphere. There
have been perhaps men upon the earth from all eternity; but at different
periods they may have been nearly annihilated, together with their
monuments, their sciences, and their arts; those who outlived these
periodical revolutions, each time formed a new race of men, who by dint
of time, labour, and experience, have by degrees withdrawn from oblivion
the inventions of the primitive races. It is, perhaps, to these
periodical revolutions of the human species, that is to be ascribed the
profound ignorance in which we see man yet plunged, upon those objects
that are the most interesting to him. This is, perhaps, the true source
of the imperfection of his knowledge--of the vices of his political
institutions--of the defect in his religion--of the growth of
superstition, over which terror has always presided; here, in all
probability, is the cause of that puerile inexperience, of those jejune