© lle ened ie 
HIS HISTORY ON THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCES. 119 
heirs of an anterior people, who understood Astronomy 
perfectly. ‘Those Chinese, those Hindoos, so renowned 
for their learning, would thus have been mere deposi- 
taries; we should have to deprive them of the title of 
inventors. Certain astronomical facts, found in the 
annals of those southern nations, appear to have belonged 
to a higher latitude. By these means we discover the 
true site on the globe of the primitive people, proving 
against the received opinion that learning came south- 
ward from the north. 
Bailly also found that the ancient fables, considered 
physically, appeared to belong to the northern regions of 
the earth. 
In 1779, Bailly published a second collection, forming 
a sequel to the former, and entitled Letters on the Atlantis 
of Plato, and on the Ancient History of Asia. 
Voltaire died before these new letters could be com- 
municated to him. Bailly did not think that this cireum- 
stance ought to make him change the form of the discus- 
sion already employed in the former series; it is still 
Voltaire whom he addresses. 
The philosopher of Ferney thought it strange that 
there should be no knowledge of this ancient people, 
who, according to Bailly, had instructed the Indians. To 
answer this difficulty, the celebrated astronomer under- 
takes to prove that some nations have disappeared, with- 
out their existence being known to us by any thing beyond 
tradition. He cites five of these, and in the first rank 
the Atlantide. 
Aristotle said that he thought Atlantis was a fiction of 
Plato’s: “He who created it also destroyed it, like the 
walls that Homer built on the shores of Troy, and then 
made them disappear.” Bailly does not join in this 
