77 



lished, and the temples of the Gods be turned into sepul- 

 chres, KUI TCL tepa ratyovs r yevrj(rff6ai. And in the fourth 

 and last place, the intelligent reader who compares this pre- 

 diction with what is said about the philosophic stranger by 

 Synesius, in the foregoing extract, will immediately see that 

 the former wonderfully accords with the latter. 



( c ) Page 57. This first period of the world, which was 

 uncultivated and rude, and, according to Firmicus, was under 

 the dominion of Saturn, is mentioned by Plato at the begin- 

 ning of his third book On Laws. For there having ob- 

 served that time is infinite, he says, " that myriads upon 

 myriads of cities have existed in this time, and that, in con- 

 sequence of the same temporal infinity, as many have been 

 destroyed." He also says, " that they will everywhere 

 have been governed according to every kind of polity ; and 

 at one time pass from the less to the greater, and at another 

 from the greater to the less, and have become worse from 

 the better, and better from the worse." He adds, " that the 

 cause of this mutation, viz. the many destructions of the 

 human race, is through deluges, diseases, and numerous 

 other things, in which a very small part of mankind was 



left " After this he observes, " that those who escaped 



the destruction which was caused by a deluge, were nearly 

 mountain shepherds, a few dormant sparks of the human 

 race, preserved on the summits of mountains. That such 

 as these must necessarily have been ignorant of other arts, 

 and of those artifices, in cities, of men towards each other, 

 with a view to prerogative and contention, and other base 

 ends." He also supposes " that the cities which were situated 

 in plains, and those bordering on the sea, entirely perished 

 at that time. That hence, all instruments were destroyed, 

 together with every invention pertaining to art, political 



