It is evident, in many passages, that Bailly is himself surprised at the singularity of his own conclusions, and fears that his readers may rather regard them as jokes.  He therefore exclaims, “My pen would not find expressions for thoughts which I did not believe to be true.”  Let us add that no effort is painful to him.  Bailly calls successively to his aid astronomy, history, supported by vast erudition, philology, the systems of Mairan, of Buffon, relatively to the heat appertaining to the earth.  He does not forget, using his own words, “that in the human species, still more sensitive than curious, more anxious for pleasure than for instruction, nothing pleases generally, or for a long time, unless the style is agreeable; that dry truth is killed by ennui!” Yet Bailly makes few proselytes; and a species of instinct determines men of science to despise the fruits of so persevering a labour; and D’Alembert goes so far as to tax them with poverty, even with hollow ideas, with vain and ridiculous efforts; he goes so far as to call Bailly, relatively to his letters, the illuminated brother.  Voltaire is, on the contrary, very polite and very academical in his communications with our author.  The renown of the Brahmins is dear to him; yet this does not prevent his discussing closely the proofs, the arguments of the ingenious astronomer.  We could also now enter into a serious discussion.  The mysterious veil that in Bailly’s time covered the East, is in great part raised.  We now know the Astronomy of the Chinese and the Hindoos in all its detail.  We know up to what point the latter had carried their mathematical knowledge.  The theory of central heat has in a few years made an unhoped-for progress; in short, comparative philology, prodigiously extended by the invaluable labours of Sacy, Remusat, Quatremere, Burnouf, and Stanislaus Julien, have thrown strong lights on some historical and geographical questions, where there reigned before a profound darkness.  Armed with all these new means of investigation, it might easily be established that the systems relative to an ancient unknown people, first creator of all the sciences, and relative to the Atlantidae, rest on foundations devoid of solidity.  Yet, if Bailly still lived, we should be only just in saying to him, as Voltaire did, merely changing the tense of a verb, “Your two books were, Sir, treasures of the most profound erudition and the most ingenious conjectures, adorned with an eloquence of style, which is always suitable to the subject.”

FIRST INTERVIEW OF BAILLY WITH FRANKLIN.—­HIS ENTRANCE INTO THE FRENCH ACADEMY IN 1783.—­HIS RECEPTION.—­DISCOURSE.—­HIS RUPTURE WITH BUFFON.

Bailly became the particular and intimate friend of Franklin at the end of 1777.  The personal acquaintance of these two distinguished men began in the strangest manner.