the being of god demonstrated. 387 



Whoever can admits that men once fprouted up like 

 Fungufes from the earth, or that flime, heated by the 

 fun and fet in fermentation, at fome period long re- 

 mote, became men, horfes, fowls, he. the fame perfon 

 will not find the metamorphofes fung by Ovid, nor 

 any of the miracles of fuperflition, nor any antiphy- 

 lical accounts, nor events contradictory to common 

 experience, at all improbable* 



For he afcribes to the earth a generative faculty—- 

 to the accidental commixture and combination of the 

 particles of earth, water, air, and fire, an effect, to 

 which, as experience fhews, they are not competent. 



How great reafon therefore has Schlcetzer for faying: 

 t6 Man is the product of immediate creation. The ac- 

 <( cidental apparition of man and bear! from flime, 

 €C animated and enlivened by the heat of the fun, the 

 " men fprung from the earth, of the Greeks, the fifli- 

 cc men of Anaximander and Telliamed, are all, ac- 

 €C cording to our modern perceptions — nonfenfe." 



LETTER PROM A FRENCH OFFICER IN THE 

 ISLAND OF CORSICA. 



Baftia, 178 1. 



You are too well verfed in hiflory to make it 

 neceffary for me to carry you back to the remote pe- 

 riods of Corlica. Here they have a tale of a lady of 

 Liguria, by name Corfa Bubulca, who brought a co- 

 lony to this place, To the natural inconftancy of thefe 



c c 2 iflanders 



