RISE AND PROGRESS 



There can belittle doubt, that in the space of, at least, 1656 

 fears, from the creation of the world to the deluge, a great variety 

 of economical arts must have been carried to a very considerable 

 degree of perfection. The knowledge of many of these perished, 

 in all likelihood, with the then inhabitants of the earth: it being 

 scarcely possible for that single family, which escaped the general 

 ruin, to have either practised, or been even superficially acquainted 

 with them all. When men have been long united in civil societies, 

 and human nature has been exalted by a reciprocal communication 

 of knowledge, it does not often happen, that any useful invention 

 is entirely lost : but were all the present inhabitants of the earth, 

 except eight persons, to be destroyed by one sudden calamity, who 

 sees not tjhat most of those serviceable and elegant arts, which at 

 present constitute the employment, and contribute to the happiness 

 of the greatest part of the human race, would probably be buried 

 in long oblivion ? Many centuries might slip away, before the new 

 inhabitants of the globe would again become acquainted with the 

 nature of the compass ; with the arts of painting, printing, or dying ; 

 of making porcelain, gun-powder, steel, or brass. 



The interval of time which elapsed from the beginning of the 

 world to the first deluge, is reckoned, by profane historians, to be 

 wholly uncertain as to the events which happened in it : it was an. 

 tecedent, by many centuries, not only to the era when they sup- 

 posed history to commence, but to the most distant ages of heroism 

 and fable. The only account relative to it, which we can rely 

 upon, is contained in the first six chapters of the book of Genesis ; 

 three of which being employed iu the history of the creation, and 

 of the fall of man ; and a fourth containing nothing but a genealo- 

 gical narration of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah ; it cannot 

 reasonably be expected, that the other two should enable us to trace 

 the various steps by which the human intellect advanced in the cul- 

 tivation of arts and sciences ; or to ascertain, with much precision, 

 the time when any of them was first introduced into the world. It 

 is somewhat remarkable, that from this account, short as it is, the 

 chemists should be authorized, with some propriety, to exalt the 

 antiquity of their art to the earliest times. TubaUcaiu is there 

 mentioned as an instructor of every artificer in copper and iron*. 

 This circumstance proves, beyond dispute, that one part of metal. 



* Gen. iv. 89. 



