The early annals of all our modern nations are no less fabulous; the
prodigious and improbable things must sometimes be reported, but as
proofs of human credulity: they enter the history of opinions and
foolishnesses; but the field is too vast.
OF RECORDS
In order to know with a little certainty something of ancient history,
there is only one means, it is to see if any incontestable records
remain. We have only three in writing: the first is the collection of
astronomical observations made for nineteen hundred consecutive years at
Babylon, sent by Alexander to Greece. This series of observations, which
goes back to two thousand two hundred and thirty-four years before our
era, proves invincibly that the Babylonians existed as a body of people
several centuries before; for the arts are only the work of time, and
men's natural laziness leaves them for some thousands of years without
other knowledge and without other talents than those of feeding
themselves, of defending themselves against the injuries of the air, and
of slaughtering each other. Let us judge by the Germans and by the
English in Caesar's time, by the Tartars to-day, by the two-thirds of
Africa, and by all the peoples we have found in America, excepting in
some respects the kingdoms of Peru and of Mexico, and the republic of
Tlascala. Let us remember that in the whole of this new world nobody
knew how to read or write.
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