The pretended scholars of Egypt said that the sun in the space of eleven thousand years had set twice in the east and risen twice in the west. When the equator and the ecliptic coincided, and when the days were everywhere equal to the nights the sun did not on that account change its setting and rising, but the earth turned on its axis from west to east, as at this day. This idea of making the sun set in the east is a chimera only worthy of the brains of the priests of Egypt and shows the profound ignorance of those jugglers who have had so much reputation. The tale should be classed with those of the satyrs who sang and danced in the train of Osiris; with the little boys whom they would not feed till after they had run eight leagues, to teach them to conquer the world; with the two children who cried _bec_ in asking for bread and who by that means discovered that the Phrygian was the original language; with King Psammeticus, who gave his daughter to a thief who had dexterously stolen his money, etc. Ancient history, ancient astronomy, ancient physics, ancient medicine (up to Hippocrates), ancient geography, ancient metaphysics, all are nothing but ancient absurdities which ought to make us feel the happiness of being born in later times. There is, no doubt, more truth in two pages of the French Encyclopædia in relation to physics than in all the library of Alexandria, the loss of which is so much regretted. BABEL. SECTION I. Babel signifies among the Orientals, God the Father, the power of God, the gate of God, according to the way in which the word is pronounced. It appears, therefore, that Babylon was the city of God, the holy city. Every capital of a state was a city of God, the sacred city. The Greeks called them all Hieropolis, and there were more than thirty of this name. The tower of Babel, then, signifies the tower of God the Father. Josephus says truly that Babel signifies confusion; Calmet says, with others, that Bilba, in Chaldæan, signifies confounded, but all the Orientals have been of a contrary opinion. The word confusion would be a strange etymon for the capital of a vast empire. I very much like the opinion of Rabelais, who pretends that Paris was formerly called Lutetia on account of the ladies' white legs. Be that as it may, commentators have tormented themselves to know to what height men had raised this famous tower of Babel. St. Jerome gives it twenty thousand feet. The ancient Jewish book entitled _"Jacult"_ gave it eighty-one thousand. Paul Lucas has seen the remains of it and it is a fine thing to be as keen-sighted as Paul Lucas, but these dimensions are not the only difficulties which have exercised the learned.