Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/22

 that sweeping Floods, or general and successive Invasions of Barbarous Enemies, may have, by Turns, destroyed all the Records of the World, till within these last Five or Six Thousand Years, makes it very amiable to those whose Interest it is, that the Christian Religion should be but an empty Form of Words, and yet cannot swallow the Epicurean Whimfies of Chance and Accident. Now the Notion of the Eternity of Mankind, through infinite successive Generations of Men, cannot be at once more effectually and more popularly confuted, than by shewing how the World has gone on, from Age to Age, improving; and consequently, that it is at present much more knowing than it ever was since the earliest Times to which History can carry us.

But upon Examination of this Question, several Difficulties ap-