STUDY IV, 



207 



ner in v/liich they might have produced the De- 

 luge *'. 



* ThePriefts of Eg^'pt maintain, accc-drng to Herodotus, 

 that the Sun had feveral times deviated frd . liis courfe, accord- 

 ingly our hypothefis has nothing new in it. They had, per- 

 haps, deduced the fame confequences from this, that we have 

 ^one. One thing is certain ; they believed that the Earth 

 would, one day, perilli by a general conflagration, as it had been 

 overwhelmed by an univerfal deluge. Nay, I believe it was one 

 of their Kings, who, as a fecurity againft either one or the other 

 of thefe calamities, had two pyramids built, the one of brick, 

 a prefervative againft fire ; the other of ftone, a prefervative 

 againft an inundation. The opinion of a future conflagration 

 of Nature is dittufed over man^f nations. But effefts fo terrible, 

 which would fpeedily refult from the mechanical caufes, by 

 which Man endeavours to explain the laws of Nature, can 

 take place only by an immediate order of the Deity. He pre- 

 ferves his works conformably to the fame Wifdom with which 

 they were created. Aftronomers have, for many Ages, been 

 obferving the annual motion of the Earth in the Ecliptic, and 

 never have they feen the Sun fo much as a Angle fécond fliort 

 of, or beyond, the Tropics. GOD governs the World by va- 

 riable powers, and deduces from thefe, harmonies which are 

 invariable. The Sun neither moves in the circle of the Equa- 

 tor, which would fet the Earth on fire, nor in that of the Meri- 

 dian, which would produce an inundation of water ; but his 

 courfe is traced in the Ecliptic, defcribing a fpiral line between 

 the two Poles of the World. In this harmonious courfe, he 

 difpenfes cold and heat, drynefs and humidity, and derives from 

 thefe powers, each of them deftruftive by itfelf. Latitudes fo 

 varied, and fo temperate, all over the Globe, that an infinite 

 number of creatures, of an extreme delicacy, find in them, 

 every degree of temperature adapted to the nature of their frail 

 exiftence. 



On 



