e and all that it contains to the combinations of four material
elements, air, earth, fire, and water; with the assistance of a fifth, an
immaterial and vivifying principle.

Nor must I omit to mention the great atomic system taught by old Moschus
before the siege of Troy; revived by Democritus of laughing memory;
improved by Epicurus, that king of good fellows; and modernized by the
fanciful Descartes. But I decline inquiring, whether the atoms, of which
the earth is said to be composed, are eternal or recent; whether they are
animate or inanimate; whether, agreeably, to the opinion of Atheists, they
were fortuitously aggregated, or, as the Theists maintain, were arranged
by a supreme intelligence.[13] Whether, in fact, the earth be an insensate
clod, or whether it be animated by a soul,[14] which opinion was
strenuously maintained by a host of philosophers, at the head of whom
stands the great Plato, that temperate sage, who threw the cold water of
philosophy on the form of sexual intercourse, and inculcated the doctrine
of Platonic love--an exquisitely refined intercourse, but much better
adapted to the ideal inhabitants of his imaginary island of Atlantis than
to the sturdy race, composed of rebellious flesh and blood, which
populates the little matter-of-fact island we inhabit.

Besides these systems, we have, moreover, the poetical theogony of old
Hesiod, who generated the whole universe in the regular mode of
procreation; and the plausible opinion of others, that the earth was
hatched from the great egg of night, which floated in chaos, and was
cracked by the horns of the celestial bull. To illustrate this last
doctrine, Burnet, in his theory of the earth,[15] has favored us with an
accurate drawing and description, both of the form and texture of this
mundane egg, which is found to bear a marvelous resemblance to that of a
goose. Such of my readers as take a proper interest in the origin of this
our planet will be pleased to learn that the most profound sages of
antiquity among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, and Latins
have alternately assisted at the hatching of this strange bird, and that
their cacklings have been caught, and continued in different tones and
inflections, from philosopher to philosopher, unto the present day.

But while briefly noticing long celebrated systems of ancient sages, let
me not pass over, with neglect, those of other philosophers, which, though
less universal than renow