deriv'd from a more Ancient Original.

We are told, that in the early Age of the World, the Strength of
Invention exceeded all that ever has been arrived to since: That we
in these latter Ages, having lost all that pristine Strength of
Reason and Invention, which died with the Ancients in the Flood,
and receiving no helps from that Age, have by long Search arriv'd
at several remote Parts of Knowledge, by the helps of reading
Conversation and Experience; but that all amounts to no more than
faint Imitations, Apings, and Resemblances of what was known in
those masterly Ages.

Now, if it be true as is hinted before, That the Chinese Empire was
Peopled long before the Flood; and that they were not destroyed in
the General Deluge in the Days of Noah; 'tis no such strange thing,
that they should so much out-do us in this sort of Eye-sight we call
General Knowledge, since the Perfections bestow'd on Nature, when in
her Youth and Prime met with no General Suffocation by that Calamity.

But if I was extreamly delighted with the extraordinary things I saw
in those Countries, you cannot but imagine I was exceedingly mov'd,
when I heard of a Lunar World; and that the way was passable from
these Parts.

I had heard of a World in the Moon among some of our Learned
Philosophers, and Moor, as I have been told, had a Moon in his Head;
but none of the fine Pretenders, no not Bishop Wilkins, ever found
Mechanick Engines, whose Motion was sufficient to attempt the
Passage. A late happy Author indeed, among his Mechanick Operations
of the Spirit, had found out an Enthusiasm, which if he could have