with a sufficient number of birds and beasts and reptiles, were preserved in a large ship, while every thing else perished beneath the waters of an universal inundation. The family consisted of eight persons: an old man and his wife, his three sons and their wives. When the waters began to abate, they sent out a raven and a dove: and, when the deluge had sufficiently subsided, their ship came to land upon the summit of a lofty mountain. By their descendants the present world was gradually filled with inhabitants.*

This, in substance, is the general tradition of all nations in every quarter of the globe. The story may be told more fully or less fully, more intermingled with fable or more free rom fable : but still, under every modification, such is its universal drift and purport.

(2.) Nor does the tradition merely float down the stream of time in a state of vague subsistence the facts, which it embraces, are embodied in the national mythology and religion of every people.

We are expressly assured, that the gods, whom the Gentiles worshipped, were illustrious men, who had flourished during the golden age or in the infancy of the world:† and, agreeably to this assurance, we invariably find a notion prevalent, that their principal divinity, the common father

* See Bryant's Anal. vol. ii. p. 195–251. Faber's Orig. of Pagan Idol. book iii. chap 4. and Hora Mosaic. book i. sect. 1. chap. 4. 2d edit.

Hesiod. Oper. et dier. lib. i. ver. 120-125. August. de Civ. Dei. lib. iv. cap. 27. lib viii. cap. 5. Cicer. Tusc. Disp. lib. i. cap. 12, 13. De nat. deor. lib. i. cap. 42. Jul. Firm. de error. prof. rel. cap. vi.

both of gods and of men, was the parent of three sons among whom the whole earth was divided; that one of the forms of his consort has a ship; that, during a time when the waters overspread the face of all lands, he was inclosed within the womb of this mysterious vessel; that, thus confined, he floated upon the surface of a shoreless ocean; and that, at length, when the flood retired, he disembarked, planted the first vine, and transmitted every useful art and science to his posterity.*

Such facts constituted the basis of the ancient Mysteries and, though they are sometimes told in a wild strain of fabulizing, they are always abundantly intelligible. For the sake of brevity, let a single instance only be produced from the mythology of Hindostan. Satyavrata having built the ark, and the flood increasing, it was made fast to the peak of Nau-bandha with a cable of prodigious length. During the flood, Brahma or the creative power was asleep at the bottom of the abyss: while the generative powers of nature, or the great god Siva and the great goddess Isi, were reduced to their simplest elements; the latter assuming the shape of a ship's hull since typified by the Argha, and the former becoming the mast of the vessel. In this manner they were wafted over the deep, under the care and protection of Vishnou. When the waters had retired, the female power of nature appeared immediately, in the charact r of Capoteswari or the dove: and she was soon joined by her consort, in the shape of Capoteswara or the

* See Bryant's Anal. and Faber's Orig. of Pagan Idol. passim. Orig. of Pagan Idol. book v. chap. 6,

male dove. On this legend it is quite superfluous to offer any explanatory observations: suffice it to say, that strong indeed must have been the recollections of the deluge, when its leading facts are thus systematically embodied in the popular mythology of every pagan nation.

Now whence could such an universal belief in a general deluge have arisen, if no such catastrophe had ever really happened? It is utterly incredible, that all mankind should have agreed in attesting the circumstance, if the circumstance itself had never occurred. This universal attestation then, on every principle of historical evidence, I shall venture once more to denominate a proof of the alleged fact: for it is a proof, which can never be invalidated by any rational process of discussion.

2. The only plausible objection or rather dif ficulty, which could be fairly started, would be this. If an event of such terrific magnitude as the general deluge ever really took place, it must have left indelible marks of its ravages upon the coats of the earth. Hence, if no such marks can be traced, the language of nature contradicts the language of historical tradition and the former, involving as it does naked tangible facts, must certainly be deemed more cogent than the latter.

(1.) Of this objection, did truth allow it to be started, I would readily acknowledge the force: but, in reality, the language of nature, as decyphered by our best physiologists, instead of contradicting, perfectly agrees with the language of universal historical tradition.

*Asiat. Research. vol. vi p. 523.

I am of opinion, says Mr. Cuvier, with Mr. de Luc and Mr. Dolomieu, that, if there is any circumstance thoroughly established in geology, it is, that the crust of our globe has been subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the epoch of which cannot be dated much farther back than five or six thousand years; that this revolution had buried all the countries, which were before inhabited by men · and by the other animals that are now best known; that the small number of individuals of men and other animals, that escaped from the effects of that great revolution, have since propagated and spread over the lands then newly laid dry; and, consequently, that the human race has only resumed a progressive state of improvement since that epoch, by forming established societies, raising monuments, collecting natural facts, and constructing systems of science and learning.*

The surface of the earth, which is inhabited by man, says Mr. Parkinson, displays even at the present day, manifest and decided marks of the mechanical agency of violent currents of water. Nor is there a single stratum, that does not exhibit undeniable proofs of its having been broken, and even dislocated, by some tremendous power, which has acted with considerable violence on this planet, since the deposition of the strata of even the latest formation.f

(2.) Thus strongly does the very texture of the globe proclaim the occurrence of a great diluvian revolution, which overwhelmed a former race of men and animals, and from the effects of

edit.

Essay on the theory of the earth. 34. p. 173, 174. 4th + Organic Remains of a former world, vol. iii. p. 454.

which only a small number of each escaped: nor does it less distinctly proclaim, that the revolution itself must have occurred at a comparatively recent era. Moses, according to the ehronological numbers of the Hebrew Pentateuch, places it 4171 years anterior to the present day ;* or, according to what I deem the preferable chronological numbers of the Samaritan Pentateuch, 4761 years anterior to the same time: Mr. Cuvier, drawing his inference from the observation of actual phenomena, pronounces, that its epoch cannot be dated much farther back than five or six thousand years.

The train of reasoning, through which he arrives at such a conclusion, is singularly curious and interesting.

By a careful investigation, says he, of what has taken place on the surface of the globe, since it has been laid dry for the last time, and since its continents have assumed their present form (at least in such parts as are somewhat elevated above the level of the ocean.) it may be clearly seen, that this last revolution, and consequently the establishment of our existing societies, could not have been very ancient. This result is one of the best established, and least a tended to, in rational zoology: and it is so much the more valuable, as it connects natural and civil history together in one uninterrupted

series.

When we endeavour to estimate the quantity of effects, produced in a given time by any causes still acting, by comparing them with the effects which these causes have produced since they began to op

* I write in the year 1823.