le
productions of nature; and the Ecpyrosis, or destruction by fire, which
dissolves the globe itself. From the Egyptians also they derived the
doctrine of the gradual debasement of man from a state of innocence.
Towards the termination of each era, the gods could no longer bear with
the wickedness of men, and a shock of the elements or a deluge
overwhelmed them; after which calamity, Astrea again descended on the
earth to renew the golden age.[11]

The connection between the doctrine of successive catastrophes and
repeated deteriorations in the moral character of the human race is more
intimate and natural than might at first be imagined. For, in a rude
state of society, all great calamities are regarded by the people as
judgments of God on the wickedness of man. Thus, in our own time, the
priests persuaded a large part of the population of Chili, and perhaps
believed themselves, that the fatal earthquake of 1822 was a sign of the
wrath of Heaven for the great political revolution just then consummated
in South America. In like manner, in the account given to Solon by the
Egyptian priests, of the submersion of the island of Atlantis under the
waters of the ocean, after repeated shocks of an earthquake, we find
that the event happened when Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of the
inhabitants.[12] Now, when the notion had once gained ground, whether
from causes before suggested or not, that the earth had been destroyed
by several general catastrophes, it would next be inferred that the
human race had been as often destroyed and renovated. And since every
extermination was assumed to be penal, it could only be reconciled with
divine justice, by the supposition that man, at each successive
creation, was regenerated in a state of purity and innocence.

A very large portion of Asia, inhabited by the earliest nations, whose
traditions have come down to us, has been always subject to tremendous
earthquakes. Of the geographical boundaries of these, and their effects,
I shall speak in the proper place. Egypt has, for the most part, been
exempt from this scourge, and the Egyptian doctrine of great
catastrophes was probably derived in part, as before hinted, from early
geological observations, and in part from Eastern nations.

_Pythagorean Doctrines._--Pythagoras, who resided for more than twenty
years in Egypt, and, according to Cicero, had visited the East, and
conversed with the Persian philosophers, introduced into his