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vision, which the earth could produce, that hereby they might live comfortably, without breaking in upon one another's plenty. At what particular time Noah instructed his children to form civil societies, we cannot certainly say; but I imagine, it might be about the time when the persons who travelled to Shinaar left him; and that they left him, because they were not willing to come into the measures, and submit to the appointments which he made for those who remained with him. These men perhaps thought, that the necessity of tilling the ground was occasioned only by too many living too near each other; and that if they separated and travelled, the earth could still afford them sufficient nourishment, without the labour of tilth and culture, and this notion very probably brought them to Shinaar.

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Diodorus Siculus has given us such an account of the ancient Indian polity, as may lead us to conjecture what steps Noah directed his children to take, in order to form nations and kingdoms. The Chinese kingdom seems to stand stand upon these regulations even to this day; being, as they themselves report little different now from what it was when framed by their legislators, as they compute, above four thousand years ago. The ancient writers called of

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all the most eastern nations by the name India. They accounted India to be the largest of all the nations in the world,' nay as large as all Asia besides ;* so that they took under that name a much larger tract

P See b. ii. q Lib. 2. r Strabo lib. 2. • Strabo lib. 15.

than what is now called India, most probably all India, and what we now call China; for they extended it eastward to the eastern sea, not meaning hereby what modern geographers call the Eastern Indian Ocean, but rather the great Indian ocean, which washes upon the Philippine Isles. The ancients had no exact knowledge of these parts of the world, but thought that the land ran in some parts, farther East, than it is now supposed to do, and in others not so far; but still as they all agreed to bound the earth every where with waters, according to Ovid,

Circumfluus humor

Ultima possedit, solidumq; coercuit orbem.

so their mare eoum, or Eastern Sea, was that which terminated the extreme eastern countries, however imperfect a notion they had of their true situation; and all the countries from Bactria up to this eastern ocean were their India. Though the ancient antiquities of the countries we now call India are quite lost or defaced; yet it is remarkable, that if we go farther East into China, to which so many incursions of the more western kingdoms and conquerors have not so frequently reached, or so much affected; we find great remains of what Diodorus calls the ancient Indian polity, and which very probably was derived from the appointments of Noah to his children. But let us

Strebo. lib. 2. ubi sup.

enquire what these appointments probably were. Now the Indians are divided into seven different orders or sorts of men. Their first legislator considered what employments were necessary to be undertaken and cultivated for the public welfare, and he appointed several sets or orders of men, that each art or employ, ment might be duly taken care of, by those whose proper business it was to employ themselves in it. 1. Some were appointed to be philosophers and to study astronomy. In ancient times, men had no way of knowing when to sow or till their grounds but by observing the rising and setting of particular stars; for they had no calendar for many ages, nor had they divided the year, into a set of months; but the lights of heaven were, as Moses speaks, for signs to them, and for seasons, and for days, and for years. They gradually found by experience, that when such or such stars appeared, the seasons for the several parts of tillage were come; and therefore found it very necessary to make the best observations they could of the heavens, in order to cultivate the earth, so that they might expect the fruits in due season. That this was indeed the way, which the ancients took to find out the proper seasons for the several parts of the husbandman's employment, is evident both from Hesiod and Virgil. The seasons of the year were pretty well settled before Hesiod's time, and much better before that of Virgil; as may appear from Hesiod's mentioning the several seasons of spring, summer, and winter, and the names of some particular months. But

a Gen. 1.

y

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both these poets have given several specimens of the ancient directions for sowing and tillage, which men at first were not dirccted to perform in this or that month, or season of the year: for these were not so early observed or settled, but upon the rising or setting of particular stars. Thus Hesiod advises to reap and plough by the rising and setting of the Pleiades,* to cut wood by the dog-star, and to prune vines by the rising of Arcturus. And thus Virgil lays it down for a general rule, that it was as necessary for the countryman as for the sailor to observe the stars; and gives various directions for husbandry and tillage in the ancient way, forming rules for the times of performing the several parts of husbandry from the lights of heaven. Men had but little notion of the seasons of the year, whilst they did not know what the true length of the year was; or at least, they must after a few years' revolutions be led into great mistakes about them. About a thousand years passed after the Flood, before the most accurate observers of the stars in any nation, were able to guess at the true length of the year, without mistaking above five days in the length of it; and in some nations they mistook more, and found out their mistake later. Now it is easy to see, what fatal mismanagement such ignorance as this, would, in six or eight years time, introduce into our agriculture, if we really thought summer and winter should come about five or six days sooner every year than their real revolution. And I think, that they

• Hesiod Εργων και μερων. Lib. 2. * Virgil. Georgic. lib. 1.

a

y Id. ibid.

a Pref. to vol. 1.

who first attempted to till the ground must do it with great uncertainty; and perhaps occasion many of the famines, which were so frequent in ancient times, being not well apprized of the true course of the seasons, and therefore tilling and sowing in unseasonable times, and in an improper manner. They observed in a little time that the stars appeared in different positions at different times; and by trying experiments, they came to guess under what star, so to speak, this or that grain was to be sown and reaped; and thus by degrees fixed good rules for their geoponics, before they attained a just and adequate notion of the revolution of the year. But then it is obvious, that any one who could give instructions in this matter, must be hghly esteemed; being most importantly useful in every kingdom. And since no one was able to give these instructions, unless he spent much time in carefully making all sorts of observations; the best that could be made at first being but very imperfect; it seems highly reasonable that every king should set apart and encourage a number of diligent students, to cultivate these studies with all possible industry; and agreeably hereto, they paid great honours to these astronomers in Egypt, and at Babylon, and in every other country where tillage was attempted with any prudence or success. Noah must be well apprized of the usefulness of this study, having lived six hundred years before the Flood; and was without doubt well acquainted with all the arts of 1 fe, which had been invented in the first world, of which the observation of the stars had been one; so that he could not only apprize his children of the necessity but also put them into some method of prosecuting these studies.

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