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be a reality; for if there had been such a Primitive
Earth, and such a Primitive World as is here represented, and so remarkably different from the present,
it could not have been so utterly forgotten, or lain
hid for so many Ages; all Antiquity would have rung
of it; the memory of it would have been kept fresh
by Books or Traditions. Can we imagine, that it
should lie buried for some thousands of years in deep
silence and oblivion; and now only when the second
World is drawing to an end, we begin to discover
that there was a first, and that of another make and
order from this.
To satisfie this objection, or surmise rather, it will
be convenient to take a good large scope and compass
in our Discourse; We must not suppose, that this
Primitive World hath been wholly lost out of the
memory of man, or out of History, for we have some
History and Chronology of it preserv'd by Moses, and
likewise in the Monuments of the Ancients, more or
less; for they all suppos'd a World before the Deluge.
But 'tis the Philosophy of this Primitive World that
hath been lost in a great measure, what the state of
Nature was then, and wherein it differ'd from the
present or Post-diluvian order of things. This, I confess, hath been little taken notice of; it hath been generally thought or presum'd, that the World before
the Flood was of the same form and constitution with
the present World: This we do not deny, but rather
think it design'd and Providential, that there should
not remain a clear and full knowledge of that first
state of things; and we may easily suppose how it
might decay and perish, if we consider how little of
the remote Antiquities of the World have ever been
brought down to our knowledge.
The Greeks and Romans divided the Ages of the
World into three periods or intervals, whereof they
call'd the first the Obscure Period, the second the Fabulous, and the third Historical. The dark and obscure
Period was from the beginning of the World to the
Deluge; what pass'd then, either in Nature or
amongst Men, they have no Records, no account, by
their own confession; all that space of time was co
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