'90 M. Fi('d.y&smous\ Defence of Christimiiti/. 



times were proportioned to the original vegetation ; and this is 

 the reason why we find everywhere remains of elephants, rhi- 

 noceroses, lions, &c. Animal and vegetable life has been modi- 

 fied in the same points, by the causes which we have just pointed 

 out, the diminution of temperature at the surface of the globe, 

 and the establishment of terrestrial climates. 



M. de Frayssinous then discusses the question, Whether the 

 stars are inhabited ? " Fontenelle's Flurality of' Worlds may 

 perhaps, he says, be nothing but an ingenious romance, but you 

 are free to see a reality in it." He next examines the question 

 so much agitated at the present day. Whether the human race 

 constitute a single species ? All the moral reasons which he 

 adduces in support of the opinion that men are derived from -the 

 same source, are of great validity ; and he admits BufFon's ideas 

 regarding the differences which the influence of climate, food, 

 and other causes, may have operated upon the original stock, in 

 its successive generations, and which have produced the modifi- 

 cations now observed in the different races. We have put it be- 

 yond doubt, that, with regard to animals and plants, it is neces- 

 sary to admit particular centres or basins of production, just as 

 we admit in physical geography, basins and hydrographic masses 

 recurring over various parts of a great surface, or in opposite 

 continents, and being affected among themselves by a variable 

 number of differences and analogies. At the same time, the 

 basins and centres of productions present similar, equivalent, or 

 diff^erent productions, according to the places ; and the animal 

 creation, like the vegetable, has been subjected to certain condi- 

 tions dependent upon the form and nature of the soil, and the state 

 of the air and waters, so that certain genera, and even certain spe- 

 cies, are reproduced at great distances, and even upon opposite 

 continents, without the possibility of supposing that they have 

 arrived there by diffusion, or by proceeding from a simple cen- 

 tre, or from several distinct centres of production. But these 

 observations, which we believe it impossible to refute, may yet 

 prove nothing with regard to the human species, and new facts 

 are required, before science can adopt a rational opinion on the 

 subject. 



The bishop now passes on to the examination of the traditions 

 respecting the deluge, and brings together all the historical evi- 



