happiness and felicity of their subjects were to finish with this life. It is true that, although the common people worshipped only the Sun, yet the Amautas, who were their priests and wife men, taught, that the Sun was only the great minifter of Pachacamac; which the Spaniards interpreted to be the Being that animated and enlivened the world; and therefore they seem to have still a more refined notion of the Supreme Being, than even the Chineses philofophers, who adored the spirit and foul of the world. Mango Copac taught them that, when they offered facrifices to his father the Sun, they should be formed of a certain part of the produce of the earth, that their great protector might continue to give a bleffing upon their labours; and of the wild beasts which they caught in hunting:-but afterwards, when the precepts of this great lawgiver came to be explained by their Amautas, and when they were engaged in wars with the neighbouring powers, the people were ordered to offer human facrifices, from among their enemies, to the Sun, to the end that he might give ftrength and victory to their arms.

Upon the whole, when we take a curfory furvey of the principles of the religion, civil government, and policy, which were taught the Peruvians by the Ynca's, and at a time too when they were to be diftinguished from the beafts only by their form, I think it will be allowed, that human nature is the fame in all parts of the world; and

that

that those unlearned Americans, from the strength of reafon and wisdom, discovered that there was a Supreme Being, who created and governed all things, as perfectly as any of the philofophers of Greece, or the Brachmans of India.

The Americans, while they remained in a state of fimplicity, and ftrict obedience to the Ynca's precepts, did not attempt to search after the myfteries of their great Pachacamac, and lived happily; but when the Amautas began, by a forced ftrain of reasoning, to explain thofe precepts, according to the dictates of their heated imaginations, and to introduce scenes of horror, and human facrifices, among the people, although the form of the Ynca's government was still kept up, yet the populace, as well as their teachers, became corrupted, and the former, from bad example, fell into a state of refined barbarity, more horrible, and contrary to the pure dictates of human nature, than that out of which Mango Copac firft drew them.This will appear likewife to have been the cafe of all the ancient inhabitants of the northern parts of Europe, and of Asia, who were distinguished, by the Roman authors, by the names of Scythians, or Celts; who inhabited all that tract of country known at prefent by the name of Great Tartary, Leffer Tartary, Mufcovy, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, and a great part of Germany; and who afterwards conquered, and gave laws to, all the other parts of Europe, and to a great part of Afia.

tional among themselves-Their opinions in natural Philofophy, were, that the earth was round, that it had a beginning, and that it must have an end, but reckoned both by immenfe periods of time; that the Creator of it was a Spirit, which pervaded the whole universe, and was diffused through every part of it. They supposed this world to be a state of purgation, wherein certain inferior spirits, who had rebelled against their great Creator, were doomed to pafs a limited time, confined in different material bodies, and afterward, were pardoned, or condemned eternally to certain punishments; and, therefore, they held the tranfmigration of fouls, as one of the fundamental articles of their religion. They, endeavoured to prevent all the diseases of the body, from which they imagined the perturbation of the mind, in a great measure, arofe; and to compofe the mind, by exempting it from all anxious cares; efteeming the troublefome and folicitous thoughts about past and future events to be like fo many troublesome dreams, and no more to be regarded. They were perfectly indifferent about life and death, pleasure and pain. Their juftice was very exact and exemplary, and their temperance fo very great, that they lived upon nothing but vegetables; believing it to be a heinous fault to kill any thing that had animal life, to which they fuppofed fome foul was annexed, undergoing its state of purgation. If they fell fick, they regarded it as fuch a mark of intemperance, that they would frequently die from

fhame;

fhame; but many of them lived to a very great age, to one hundred and fifty, and fome to two hundred years; to which undoubtedly their temperance greatly contributed.-It does not appear that they had any of the frightful idols, in those days, like to those which are found among them at prefent; although they adored a plurality of Gods; but their chiefeft adoration was to that great Spirit whom they looked upon to be the father of all things.-Their wifdom was fo highly esteemed, that fome of them were always employed to advise their kings and governors, on all occafions, and to inftruct them in justice and piety. Their fortitude was aftonishing, in the enduring of all evils, of pain, and of death; as, during the time that they did their penances, fome would ftand, or fit, whole days together, without any motion, in the fcorching fun; others would ftand whole nights upon one leg, and holding up a heavy piece of wood or stone in both hands, without ever moving. They frequently ended their lives by their own choice, and not by neceffity, in cafes of sickness, or great misfortunes, or even upon a mere fatiety of life, and most usually by fire, and taught their followers to do the

fame.

These were the Brachmans of India, by the most ancient accounts we find of them in hiftory; and we may from hence perceive, that the priests, which are at present among the Gentoos, of the Brachman race, although degenerated, and fallen

then theatre of learning, their actions and fortunes are held out as the common examples of virtue and honour, and the reproaches of vice. The states wherein those wife and famous conftitutions were displayed, made but a small part of the globe, and little notice has been taken of the other parts; which, though accounted barbarous by many celebrated authors, were perhaps lefs fo than many of thofe kingdoms whofe hiftory thofe authors have handed down to posterity, and have as much right to give their voice in the decifion of the important question, which I have ftated, as thofe who have arrogated it wholly to themselves; as, upon enquiry, the wisdom, and duration, of their civil constitutions, and the examples of their lawgivers, will be found to have equalled, or exceeded, all those I have before mentioned.

When we regard the map of the world, as it lies at present before us, fince the great discoveries which have been made, during these three laft centuries, we shall see what vaft regions of inhabited country there are, which were no part of that ancient scene before mentioned; many of which were unknown to the ancients; and, although paffing for barbarous, and much overlooked by many learned modern authors, I am perfuaded will af ford as much matter for fpeculation, as the other states so much celebrated in ancient history, for the excellency of their conftitutions and laws, and for their respective systems of theology. All that part of Afia, to the east of the Ganges,

which was ef

teemed