Fancied Architectural Remains in the Moon. 47 



the masses on which they are brought to act. The former de- 

 termines the occasions and the principal directions of our cor- 

 poreal activity ; and the latter assists us in appreciating what 

 it is possible for us to accomplish in all that relates either to 

 quantity or quality. In other words, man builds mansions, 

 because those which nature provides for his accommodation ap- 

 pear insufficient in the atmospherical circumstances in which he 

 is placed ; with much labour he makes regular roads, because, 

 according to the nature of gravity at the surface of the Earth, 

 his own transport, and that of goods, would be exceedingly dif- 

 ficult without artificial routes. We oppose barriers, to the in- 

 juries of time, whose form and magnitude are determined as 

 much by the object we have in view, as by the forces we have 

 at our disposal. Our philosophy having not as yet succeeded 

 in procuring for us a general and perpetual peace, we have 

 built fortifications which, previous to the discovery of gun- 

 powder, were very different from what they now are, and which 

 will be very different again, when steam has come into some- 

 what more general use. A number of our arrangements have 

 relation to the variations of the seasons, so remarkable in our 

 planet. Thus, in fact, every thing which man effects upon 

 the Earth is associated with the special circumstances of our 

 globe ; and when what is requisite for us is naturally prepared, 

 there is no necessity for our substituting our individual ex- 

 ertions. If the shores of the ocean afford sufficiently good har- 

 bours, we never think of establishing them ; if rivers answer 

 the demands of commerce, a canal is not made ; and if nature's 

 precipices would afford sufficient shelter, we should be spared 

 all the trouble of walls and enclosures. 



What right, then, have we to expect artificial productions 

 which shall have an analogy, even the most distant, with ter- 

 restrial objects in a heavenly luminary where the existence of an 

 atmosphere is, to say the least, exceedingly doubtful, and where 

 there are neither winds nor rain ; where of water in a liquid state 

 there is npne, and where the gravitation of bodies, and, conse- 

 quently, the resistance of matter, is six times less than upon the 

 Earth ; without even alluding to the immense differences the 

 earth presents in relation to its days, its seasons, its tempera- 

 tures, &c. Those astronomers who have given themselves wi|h 



