The Natural Mi flory PartL 



far more excellent and noble Invention. 

 We fee therefore that there were feve- 

 ral Reafons why thofe early Ages 

 could not tranfmit Accounts of the 

 ftate of the Earth and of theft Marine 

 Bodies, in their times, down to the 

 focceediog Generations. So that thefe 

 having little more to trull: to than 

 their own Imagination, and no flirer 

 a Guide in their Reafonings about thefe 

 things than bare Conjecture, 'twas no 

 wonder that they fell into grols and 

 palpable Miftakes concerning them. 



Nor much more wonder is it that 

 an Epicure : one who could ever eP- 

 poufe a Notion fo enormoufly abfurd 

 and feoielefs, as that the World was 

 framed by Chance : that this vaft, re- 

 gular, and moft ftupendous Pile was 

 owing to no higher a Principle than a 

 fortuitous Congrefs of Atoms: and 

 that either there was no God at all, 

 or, which is much the fame thing, 

 that he was an impotent and lazy Be- 

 ing^ and wholly without concern for 

 the Affairs of this lower World : I fay, 

 'tis in no wife ftrange that fuch a one 

 fliould believe, as he did, that things 

 yvere blindly (huffled and hurled about 

 in the World : that the Elements were 



at 



