ITALY, AND INDIA. 237 



ous eftablifhment of great empires by the defcendants 

 of his brother Ham : thirdly, the Mofaick, orlefs pure, 

 age ; from the legation of Mofes, and during the time 

 when his ordinances were comparatively well obferved 

 and uncorrupted : laflly, the prophetical, or impure, age, 

 beginning with the vehement warnings given by the 

 prophets to apoftate kings and degenerate nations, but 

 it ill fubfifting, and to fublift, until all genuine pro- 

 phecies [hall be fully accomplished. The duration of 

 the hiftorical ages mult needs be very unequal and dis- 

 proportionate; whilethatof the Indian Yugs is difpofed 

 fo regularly and artificially, that it cannot be admitted 

 as natural or probable. Men do not become reprobate 

 in a geometrical progreflion, or at the termination of 

 regular periods; yet fo well proportioned are the Yugs, 

 that even the length of human life is diminifhed as they 

 advance, from an hundred thoufand years in a fubde- 

 cuple ratio; and, as the number of principal Avatars 

 in each decreafe* arithmetically from four, fo the num- 

 ber of years in each decreafes geometrically, and all 

 together conftitute the extravagant fum of four million 

 three hundred and twenty thoufand years, which aggre- 

 gate, multiplied by feventy-one, is the period in which 

 every Menu is believed to prefide over the world. Such 

 a period, one might conceive, would have fatisfied Ar- 

 chetas, the meajurcr of fea and earth, and the numbcrer 

 of their [and s ; or Archimedes, who invented a nota- 

 tion that was capable of expreffingthe number of them; 

 but the comprehenfive mind of an Indian chronologi't 

 has no limits; and the reigns of fourteen Menus are only 

 a {ingle day of Brahma, fifty of which days have elapfed, 

 according to the Hindus, from the time of the creation. 

 That all this puerility, as it feems at fir ft view, may be 

 only an agronomical riddle, and allude to the apparent 

 revolution of the fixed ftars, of which the Brdhmans 

 made a myftery, I readily admit, and am even inclined 

 to believe; but fo technical an arrangement excludes all 

 idea of ferious hiltory . I am leniible how much ihefe 



remarks 



