W.,  W.2<b  JL—£d,

'  How  there  be  creatures  there,]  In  £dU. 1642  and  MS. W. the  passage
is  thus :  ''  How  thereby  creatures  are  there." — Ed,

^  There  is  another  secret,  Jsc]  The  diffusion  of  the  animal  creation
over  the  fistoe  of  the  earth  does  indeed  involve  a  most  interesting  and
difficult  inquixy. Whence  came  the  innumerable  tribes  of  human  Imngs,


Digitized  by  VjOOQIC


BELieiO  MEDICI. 853

particular,  proceed  upon  a  principle  that  I  can  no  way
grant ;  not  only  uponjthe  negative  of  Holy  Scriptures,  but
of  mine  own  reason,  whereby  I  can  make.it  probable  that
the  world  was  as  well  peopled  in  the  time  of  Noah  as  in
ours ;  and  fifteen  hundred  years,  to  people  the  world,  as
full  a  time  for  them  as  four  thousand  years  since  have  been
to  us.^  There  are  other  assertions  and  common  tenets
drawn  firom  Scripture,  and  generally  believed  as  Scripture,*
whereunto,  notwithstanding,  I  would  never  betray  the
liberty  of  my  reason. 'Tis  a  postulate  to  me,  that  Methu-
salem  was  the  longest  lived  of  all  the  children  of  Adam ;
4md  no  man  will  be  able  to  prove  it ;  when,  &om  the  pro*
cess  of  the  text,  I  can  manifest  it  may  be  otherwise. ^
That  Judas  perished  by  hanging  himself,  there  is  no  cer-
tainty in  Scripture :  though,  in  one  place,  it  seems  to  affirm

diversified  in  form,  complexion,  and  character,  which  inhabit  every
-continent  and  island  of  our  globe  ?  Whence  the  myriads  of  animalsy
and  birds,  and  lesser  creatures,  which  eveiywhere  teem  in  the  most
astonishing  profusion  and  variety ;  peopling  its  mountains,  and  plains,
and  forests,  and  glittering  on  its  surnce  ?  Who  can  solve  the  problem  ?
Who  will  undertake  to  make  out  successive  returns  of  this  mighty  popu-
lation, to  mark  out  the  progress  of  its  migrations,  and  trace  back  its
genealogies  through  a  succession  of  4000  years,  up  to  its  cradle,  the
ark,  reposing  on  the  summit  of  Ararat,  amidst  the  silence  of  universal
desolation  ?  It  is  a  question  about  which  so  little  is  known,  and  so
much  must  depend  on  conjecture,  that  it  seems  rather  calculated  for  the
exercise  of  ingenuity,  or  even  the  indulgence  of  scepticism,  than  likely
to  lead  to  the  development  of  truth. 