THEORY OF THE EARTH. 85 



some may even conceive that the various monsters, 

 essential ornaments of the history of the heroic 

 ages of almost every nation, are precisely those 

 very species which it was necessary to destroy, 

 in order to allow the establishment of civilized so- 

 cieties. Thus Theseus and Bellerophon must 

 have been more fortunate than all the nations of 

 more modern days, who have only been able to 

 drive back the noxious animals into the deserts and 

 ill-peopled regions, but have never yet succeeded 

 in exterminating a single species. 



26. Inquiry respecting the Fabulous Animals of 

 the Ancients. 



It is easy to reply to the foregoing objectioa s 

 by examining the descriptions that are left us by 

 the ancients of those unknown animals, and by in- 

 quiring into their origins. Now the greater num- 

 ber of those animals have an origin purely mythor 

 logical, and of this origin the descriptions given of 

 them bear the most unequivocal marks ; as, in al- 

 most all of them, we see merely the different 

 parts of known animals united by an unbridled 

 imagination, and in contradiction to every estab- 

 lished law of nature. 



Those which have been invented by the poeti- 

 cal fancy of the Greeks, have at least some grace 

 and elegance in their composition, resembling the 

 fantastic decorations which are still observable OH 



