XXV11i



INTRODUCTIONb



  In departing from the Antediluvian world, it might be
inquired, how it came to pass, that, in those days, people
attained to so extraordinary a longevity.  In order to
reply to this question of curiosity, we must form various
conjectures. Some writers, to reconcile the matter with
probability, have asserted that the Antediluvians com-
puted their ages by lunar months, and not by solar years:
but this expedient would reduce the length of their lives



to a shorter
admitted as
some of the



period than our
probable, it m
n were fathers



I own. If this
ust necessarily
at the absurd



hypothesi
foil ow,
age of si



is be
that
x or



seven years. Besides, the whole interval between the
Creation and the Deluge would then be contracted to less
than two hundred years. This supposition, therefore, we
shall, at once, reject as incredible.
  For this longevity there are, however, reasons sufficia
ently obvious. In the first place, we must suppose, that,
while the earth was inhabited by a scanty population,
commencing with a single pair, it would be necessary to
endow men with a stronger frame, and to allow them a
longer continuance on earth, for peopling it with inhabi-
tants. Philosophers, likewise, contend, and in our opiv
nion, on very reasonable grounds, that the qualities of
the air, and consequently the stamina of the human con-



stitution, were greatly al
changes which the woi
flood. We are, indeed,
of doubt, that the delu
whole body of nature;
tended to contract the d
possibly ascertain. We
experience, that climate,
a tendency to lengthen (



tered for the worse by the several
Ild must have undergone at the
convinced, beyond the possibility
ae affected, most materially, the
but, whether that alteration has
Iuration of human life, we cannot
are, likewise aware, fronm daily
food, and mode of living, have
or shorten the days of man.