Maurice in his Indiæ Antiquitates, vol. 6, page 53, proves that the Indians had a knowledge of the fall of the first man and of the first woman; he proves also that the dogma of original sin was taught by the Druids. Voltaire, on the seventeenth page of his work, Additions to General History, confesses that the Bramas believed that man was fallen and degenerated: "this idea," he adds, "is found among all the ancient peoples." The Father Jesuit Bouchet, in a letter to the Bishop of Avranches, writes: "The gods," our Indians say, "tried by all means to obtain immortality. After many inquiries and trials, they conceived the idea that they could find it in the tree of life, which was in the Chorcan. In fact they succeeded; and in eating once in a while of the fruits of that tree, they kept the precious treasure they so much valued. A famous snake, named Cheiden, saw that the tree of life had been found by the gods of the second order. As probably he had been entrusted with guarding that tree, he became so angry because his vigilance had been deceived, that he immediately poured out an enormous quantity of poison, which spread over the whole earth." In the Ta-Hio, or Moral of Confucius, page 50, Confucius, after saying that reason is a gift from heaven, adds, "Concupiscence has corrupted it, and it is now mixed with many impurities. Therefore take off those impurities so that it resume its first luster, and all its former perfection." The philosopher Tchouangse taught, in conformity with the doctrine of King or sacred books of the Chinese, "that in the former state of heaven, man was inly united to the supreme reason; and that he practiced all the works of justice. The heart relished the truth. There was in man no alloy of falsity. Then the four seasons of the year were regular. Nothing was injurious to man, and man was injurious to nothing. Universal harmony reigned in all nature. But the columns of the firmament having been broken, the earth was shaken in its very foundations. Man having rebelled against the heavens the system of the universe was deranged; evils and crimes flooded the earth." This testimony is extracted from the Discourse of Ramsey on Mythology, pages 146, and 148. M. de Humboldt, in the tome 1, pages 237 and 274, and also in the tome 2, page 198 of his Views of the Cordilleras and of the monuments of America, says, "That the mother of our flesh; the serpent Cihuacohuati, and her are famous in the Mexican traditions. Those traditions represent the mother of our flesh fallen from her first state of innocence and happiness." Voltaire, in Questions on Encyclopedia, says; "The fall of man degenerated is the basis of the theology of all the ancient nations."