346 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



kind. That place of the Horizon where the Sun 

 arifes, undoubtedly fixed their wondering eyes, at 

 a period when no fyftem had interpofed to regulate 

 opinion. On feeing that great Luminary arifing, 

 from day to day, in the fame quarter of the Hea- 

 vens, they muft have been perfuaded that he there 

 had a fixed habitation, and that he had another 

 where he fer, as a place of reft. Such imagina- 

 tions, confirmed by the teftimony of their eyes, 

 were, it muft be admitted, natural to men defti- 

 lute of experience, who had attempted to erect a 

 tower which mould reach to Heaven, and who, 

 even in the illumination of more fcientific ages, 

 believed, as a point of religion, that the Sun was 

 drawn about in a chariot by horfes, and retired 

 every evening to repofe in the arms of Thetis. I 

 prefume, they would be determined to go in queft 

 of him rather toward the Eaft than toward the 

 Weft, under the perfuafion that they would greatly 

 abridge their labour, by advancing to meet him. 



It muft have been this conviction, I am difpofed 

 to think, which left the Weft, for a long time, in 

 a deferted ftate, under the very fame Latitudes 

 which, in the Eaft, were fwarming with inhabi- 

 tants, and which firft fent men in crowds. toward 

 the eaftern part of our Continent, where the ear- 

 lieft. and moft populous Empire of the World, 

 that of China, was formed. What confirms me 



farther 



