152 INTELLECTUAL GLOBE. 



history itself either consists of sacred history, or of divine 

 precepts and doctrines, which are, so to speak, an every 

 day philosophy. And that part which seems to fall with 

 out this division, prophecy, is itself a species of history, 

 with the prerogative of deity stamped upon it of making- 

 all times one duration, so that the narrative may anticipate 

 the fact ; thus also the mode of promulgating vaticination 

 by vision, or the heavenly doctrines by parables, partakes 

 of the nature of poetry. 



CHAP. II. 



A partition of History into Natural and Civil, Ecclesiasti 

 cal, Literary, and Particular, included in Civil History. 

 A division of Natural History into the History of Gene 

 rations, Prater-generations, and Arts; according to the 

 three states of Nature, namely, Nature in course, vary 

 ing, and constrained. 



HISTORY is either natural or civil. In natural history we 

 recount the events and doings of nature ; in civil, of men. 

 Things divine no doubt have a conspicuous share in both, 

 but chiefly in human, so as to constitute a branch of their 

 own in history, which we are accustomed to call sacred or 

 ecclesiastical. We shall therefore assign that branch to 

 the province of civil history : and we shall first speak of 

 natural history. There is extant no natural history of 

 things individual. Not that we would lay down the false 

 position that history ought to be engrossed with describing 

 individuals, which are limited in time and place. For in 

 that view it is proper there should be none; since, however, 

 there is a general resemblance of natural objects, so that if 

 you know one you know all, it were superfluous and inter 

 minable to speak of individuals. Thus if in any case that 

 indistinguishable general resemblance be wanting, natural 

 history admits individuals those, that is, of which there is 

 not a number or family. For a history of the sun, the 

 moon, the earth, and the like, which are unique in their 

 species, is most properly written, and no less of those 

 which conspicuously vary from their species and are mon 

 strous; since the description and the knowledge of the 

 species neither sufficiently nor competently supplies the 

 want of it. Wherefore natural history does not exclude 

 these two classes of individuals, but is in by far the largest 



