ELECTED INTO THE ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS. 155 



ELECTION OF BAILLY INTO THE ACADEMY OF IN- 

 SCRIPTIONS. 



In speaking of the pretended identity of the Atlantis, 

 or of the kingdom of Ophir under Solomon with America, 

 Bailly says, in his fourteenth letter to Voltaire : " Those 

 ideas belonged to the age of learned men, but not to the 

 philosophic age." And elsewhere (in the twenty-first 

 letter) we read these words : " Do not fear that I shall 

 fatigue you by heavy erudition." To have supposed that 

 erudition could be heavy and be deficient in philosophy, 

 was for certain people of a secondary order an unpar- 

 donable crime. And thus we saw men, excited by a 

 sentiment of hate, arm themselves with a critical micro- 

 scope, and painfully seek out imperfections in the innu- 

 merable quotations with which Bailly had strengthened 

 himself. The harvest was not abundant ; yet, these 

 eager ferrets succeeded in discovering some weak points, 

 some interpretations that might be contested. Their joy 

 then knew no bounds. Bailly was treated with haughty 

 disdain : " His literary erudition was very superficial ; 

 he had not the key of the sanctuary of antiquity ; he was 

 everywhere deficient in languages." 



That it might not be supposed that these reproaches 

 had any reference to Oriental literature, Bailly's adver- 

 saries added : " that he had not the least tincture of the 

 ancient languages ; that he did not know Latin." 



He did not know Latin ? And do you not see, you 

 stupid enemies of the great Astronomer, that if it had 

 been possible to compose such learned works as The His- 

 tory of Astronomy, and The Letters on the Atlantis, with- 

 out referring to the original texts, by using translations 

 only, you would no longer have preserved any impor- 



