Chap. V. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 339 



rope, or that were formerly fpokea, fuch as the Greek, Latin, Celtic, 

 Gothic, and their feveral dialers ; but the Afiatic languages, fuch 

 as the Hebrew, Arabic, Phoenician, and Chaldean, aud alfo the Ma- 

 layfe language, and that fpoken in the ifland of Madagafcar. And 

 he has gone to the eaft as far as China ; and he might have gone 

 farther ftill, even to Japan, betwixt the language of which and the 

 Teutonic, a late German writer has difcovered a great refemblance. 

 And he has not confined himfelf to the old world, but has crofled 

 the Atlantic, and gone, as I have faid, to the weft, and examined 

 the feveral languages fpoken in the different provinces of North and 

 South America, and alfo in the illands of the South Sea ^. 



As to America, I am convinced that It was peopled from the 

 north-eaft parts of Afia, from which it is at prefent divided by a 

 very narrow fea, full of fmall illands, which look like ftepping- 

 ftones between the two continents. And I think there is realon to 

 believe that there was a time when they were not divided at all by 

 any fea : For there is a French author, M. le Page du Pratz, whom 

 I have mentioned elfewhere f , who travelled a good deal in North 

 America, and in his travels met v»'ith an Indian, who had travelled 

 in that countiy much more than he, and who told him that he had 

 met with an old Indian who, in his youth, had known an old 

 man that had feen the two continents joined if : So that the 

 fea appears to have made an irruption there, and to have feparated 

 the tvv-o continents, in the fame manner as it feparated Sicily 

 from Italy, of which the name of the town in Italy, built upon 

 the ftrait, was a memorial ; for It was called Reggiuin^ a word 

 which in Greek, denotes biirjling or breaking, I think It is proba- 

 ble that Britain was feparated from France In the fame manner ; 



U u 2 and 



* Vol. 8th, p 489. and following. f Vol. 3. of this -work, p. 53. 



t P. 303. of the Hiftory of LouiCuna, by M. le Page du Pratz. 



