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4. All mankind, it is said, have had one common origin in first 

 parents: by which is meant that from two individuals existing as the 

 only examples of the species, ova were furnished by derivation, 

 which produced others of the same kind; to these last succeeded 

 another generation, to this another, proceeding on to such a multi- 

 plication of individuals as maybe said now to constitute the whole 

 of the human race; and the' same is said of other animals. Mere 

 unassisted reason, working with the materials which are supplied by 

 observation of the order of nature, her capacities, &c. if compelled 

 to say something upon the subject, would propose two modes of 

 the multiplication of the species, viz. either by an origin in two com- 

 mon parents, or by a derivation from numerous parental stocks : 

 the latter mode pre-supposing that the causes which formed man 

 and woman in one place might have formed them in many others, 

 perhaps about the same time. As we profess here to pay some re- 

 spect to this same unaided reason, however little it might be en- 

 titled to it, it is necessary that we should take these alternatives 

 into consideration. 



5. We perceive, upon the first view, that a peremptory de- 

 cision is in this case quite impossible, and that to conjecture with 

 any sort of probability is, to say the least of it, very difficult. It is 

 proper to inquire, in the first place, how far history can assist us in 

 the determination? 



6. It appears that history has but a very weak voice, when the 

 business to be spoken of is one so remote as that we are considering; 

 because, at the first periods of human testimony, written or traditional, 

 the earth was found to be already peopled in many places, and 

 though one tribe might so far simplify its ancestry as to reduce it to 

 an origin in one father and one mother, yet it could not be ascer- 

 tained that people existing elsewhere owed their birth to the same 

 originals; there may be even no testimony that these first parents 

 were at all related with a neighbouring tribe, much less with the 

 inhabitants of distant nations. 



7. But the proof of the origin of the human species in two first 

 parents has never been rested upon human record, because it is 

 obvious that none of such antiquity can exist; and even if it did 

 exist, the question would occur whether such record did not apply 

 to one tribe or to one nation, rather than to those others which are 

 scattered over the earth. But such a proof has been grounded upon 

 a revealed account, which assigns one origin of mankind, &c. in first 

 parents, viz. in Adam and Eve, who were created (furnishing an 

 illustration of the origin by constitution) and another origin (by 

 derivation) in the family of Noah. The descendants of the first 

 were destroyed by a deluge, those of the second exist now, and have 

 been multiplying ever siuce the subsidence of the waters. 



8. This account is not traditional, or preserved in manuscript, 

 but rests upon the credit of an inspired writer. This authority will 

 be respected on the one hand by those who acquiesce in the full 

 scope of inspiration, as it is represented to us ; or, on the other, it 



