THE MODERN PART OF AN Univerfal History, FROM.THE. Earliest AccOUNT of TIME. Compiled from ORIGINAL WRITERS, By the AUTHORS of the ANTIENT PART. IN RECTO DE CVS LONDON: Printed for T. OSBORNE, C. HITCH, A. MILLAR, M.DCC.LXIII. Modern History: BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE Univerfal History. The HISTORY of AMERICA. SECT. XII. Containing the Hiftory of the Incas, and the Religion, T HE origin of nations is fo involved in obfcurity, that Account of little can be related with certainty, refpecting the the ancient earlier periods, and remoter ages, of the moft civilized Peruvians. people, that has any pretenfions to antiquity. What fables are intermixed with the hiftories of Rome and Athens! Even the origin of modern nations, though pofterior to the use of lettters, hath its difficulties, and every day furnishes matter of debate among antiquaries: how, therefore, can we expect to find truth unmixed with falfhood and abfurdity, in the accounts given by the barbarous natives of the origin of thofe kingdoms and empires, whofe fubverfion afforded the firft inlet to the enlightening beams of science, and the bright dawn diffused over every object, by the use of those characters invented happily to carry our ideas to posterity, with the fame precifion they occured to our own minds? Accordingly we find, that nothing can be more improbable, fuperftitious, and ridiculous, than the account given of the Peruvians, before they were reduced by their Incas to a regular form of government, unless we except the means by MOD. HIST. VOL. XXXIX. which B |