360 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



All Naturalifts confider the colours of bodies as 

 fimple accidents ; and mofl" of them look on their 

 very forms as the effedt of fome attradtion, incu- 

 bation, cryftallization, &c. Books are every day 

 compofed, the objedt of which is to extend, by 

 analogies, the mechanical effeds of thofe Laws to 

 the different produdions of Nature ; but if they 

 really poffefs fo much power, How comes it that 

 the Sun, that univerfal agent, has not long ere now 

 filled the waters, the dry land, the forefts, the 

 heavens, the plains, and all the creatures over 

 which he exercifes fo much influence, with the 

 uniform and monotonous effeds of his light ? All 

 thefe objeds ought to affume his appearance, and 

 prefent only white or yellow to our eyes, and be 

 diftinguifhed from each other only by their (hades. 

 A landfcape ought to exhibit to us no other effeds 

 but thofe of a cameo, or of a print. Latitudes, 

 we are told, diverfify the colour of them. But if 

 Latitudes have this power. How comes it to pafs, 

 that the produdions of the fame climate, and of 

 the fame field, have not all the fame tints? Whence 

 is it that the quadrupeds, which are born and die 

 in the meadow, do not produce young ones green 

 as the grafs on which they feed ? 



Nature has not fatisfied herfelf with eflablifhing 

 particular harmonies in every fpecies of beings, in 

 order to charaderize them ; but that they might 



not 



