Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete by Washington Irving Read Free Book Online Page A

philosophers to demolish the works of their predecessors, and elevate more splendid fantasies in their stead, which in their turn are demolished and replaced by the air-castles of a succeeding generation. Thus it would seem that knowledge and genius, of which we make such great parade, consist but in detecting the errors and absurdities of those who have gone before, and devising new errors and absurdities, to be detected by those who are to come after us. Theories are the mighty soap-bubbles with which the grown-up children of science amuse themselves while the honest vulgar stand gazing in stupid admiration, and dignify these learned vagaries with the name of wisdom! Surely Socrates was right in his opinion, that philosophers are but a soberer sort of madmen, busying themselves in things totally incomprehensible, or which, if they could be comprehended, would be found not worthy the trouble of discovery.
    For my own part, until the learned have come to an agreement among themselves, I shall content myself with the account handed down to us by Moses; in which I do but follow the example of our ingenious neighbors of Connecticut; who at their first settlement proclaimed that the colony should be governed by the laws of God—until they had time to make better.
    One thing, however, appears certain—from the unanimous authority of the before quoted philosophers, supported by the evidence of our own senses (which, though very apt to deceive us, may be cautiously admitted as additional testimony)—it appears, I say, and I make the assertion deliberately, without fear of contradiction, that this globe really was created, and that it is composed of landand water. It further appears that it is curiously divided and parceled out into continents and islands, among which I boldly declare the renowned island of New York will be found by any one who seeks for it in its proper place.
    FOOTNOTES:
    [10]
    Aristot. ap, Cic. lib. i. cap. 3.
    [11]
    Aristot. Metaph. lib. i. c. 5.; Idem, de Coelo, 1. iii, c. I; Rousseau mem. sur Musique ancien. p. 39; Plutarch de Plac. Philos. lib. i. cap. 3.
    [12]
    Tim. Locr. ap. Plato. t. iii. p. 90.
    [13]
    Aristot. Nat. Auscult. I. ii. cap. 6; Aristoph. Metaph. lib. i. cap. 3; Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. i. cap. 10; Justin Mart. orat. ad gent. p. 20.
    [14]
    Mosheim in Cudw. lib. i. cap. 4; Tim. de anim. mund. ap. Plat. lib. iii.; Mem. de l’Acad. des Belles-Lettr. t. xxxii. p. 19.
    [15]
    Book i. ch. 5.
    [16]
    Holwell, Gent. Philosophy.
    [17]
    Johannes Megapolensis. Jun. Account of Maquaas or Mohawk Indians.
    [18]
    Drw. Bot. Garden, part i. cant. i. 1. 105.
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CHAPTER III.

    Noah, who is the first seafaring man we read of, begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Authors, it is true, are not wanting who affirm that the patriarch had a number of other children. Thus Berosus makes him father of the gigantic Titans; Methodius gives him a son called Jonithus, or Jonicus (who was the first inventor of Johnny cakes); and others have mentioned a son, named Thuiscon, from whom descended the Teutons or Teutonic, or, in other words, the Dutch nation.
    I regret exceedingly that the nature of my plan will not permit me to gratify the laudable curiosity of my readers, by investigating minutely the history of the great Noah. Indeed, such an undertaking would be attended with more trouble than many people would imagine; for the good old patriarch seems to have been a great traveler in his day, and to have passed under a different name in every country that he visited. The Chaldeans, for instance, give us his story, merely altering his name into Xisuthrus—a trivial alteration, which to an historian skilled in etymologies will appear wholly unimportant. It appears, likewise, that he had exchanged his tarpaulin and quadrant among the Chaldeans for the gorgeous insignia of royalty, and appears as a monarch in their annals. The Egyptians celebrate him under the name of Osiris; the Indians as Menu; the Greek and Roman writers