65 



mate discussion have been arbitrarily rejected, and reclaimed, 

 to suit the views of hypothesis, or eUide the autliority of ar- 

 gument. To the philosopher, it may not be without a portion 

 of instruction, and utility, to perceive the disputes on a chrono- 

 logic character assume all the violence and severity of a reli- 

 gious controversy. And while he may smile in derision, or 

 sigh in regret, over the weakness of the human intellect, as 

 displayed in the solemn trifling, the solicitous anxiety, or (he 

 embittered vehemence, of the combatants; the christian, too, 

 may derive advantage from the instructive lesson; and re- 

 flect with purer, and more unmixed pleasure, that infidelity 

 has no cause to triumph, in the eventual decision of the 

 question ; or the friends of religious truth to fear, that its 

 interests, or its accuracy, must be compromised in the discus- 

 sion of its evidence. In renewing an enquiry, which for so 

 many ages, has divided the opinions of the learned, little it 

 should seem could be hoped from industry, and little expected 

 from talent ; but the arrow of Paris has sojnetimes succeeded, 

 where the spear of Hector had been launched in vain. And 

 the vanity of adding another name, to the hosts, who have 

 tried their strength at the Ulysses' bow of chronologists, may 

 perhaps, be pardoned, or overlooked, when the value of the 

 stake or the importance of the interests involved, is considered. 

 The comparative antiquity of the globe, as far as it concerns 

 mankind, is aflfected in the enquir}' ; and the only means we 

 possess, of synchronizing or correcting the histories of nations, 

 is surrendered, to uncertainty and caprice, while this question 



K 2 remains 



