TO INANIMATE NATURE. 171 



posed upon them, at moderate intervals, a general intermis- 

 sion of their toils, their occupations, and pursuits. 



But it is not for man, either solely or principally, that 

 night is made. Inferior, but less perverted natures, taste 

 its solace, and expect its return, with greater exactness 

 and advantage than he does. I have often observed, and 

 never observed but to admire, the satisfaction, no less than 

 the regularity, with which the greatest part of the irration- 

 al world yield to this soft necessity, this grateful vicissi- 

 tude ; how comfortably the birds of the air, for example, 

 address themselves to the repose of the evening ; with what 

 alertness they resume the activity of the day. 



Nor does it disturb our argument to confess, that certain 

 species of animals are in motion during the night, and at 

 rest in the day. With respect even to them it is still true, 

 that there is a change of condition in the animal, and an 

 external change corresponding with it. There is still the 

 relation, though inverted. The fact is, that the repose of 

 other animals sets these at liberty, and invites them to their 

 food or their sport. 



If the relation of sleep to night, and in some instances, 

 its converse, be real, we cannot reflect without amazement 

 upon the extent to which it carries us. Day and night are 

 things close to us ; the change applies immediately to our 

 sensations ; of all the phenomena of nature, it is the most 

 familiar to our experience ; but in its cause, it belongs to 

 the great motions which are passing in the heavens. Whilst 

 the earth glides round her axle, she ministers to the alter- 

 nate necessities of the animals dwelling upon her surface, 

 at the same time that she obeys the influence of those at- 

 tractions, which regulate the order of many thousand worlds. 

 The relation therefore of sleep to night, is the relation of 

 the inhai>itants of the earth to the rotation of their globe; 

 probably it is more ; it is a relation to the system, of which 

 that globe is a part; and, still further, to the congregation 

 of systems, of which theirs is only one. If this account be 

 true, it connects the meanest individual with the universe 

 itself; a chicken roosting upon its perch, with the spheres 

 revolving in the firmament. 



VIII. But if any one object to our representation, that 

 the succession of day and night, or the rotation of the earth 

 upon which it depends, is not resolvable into central at- 

 traction, we will refer him to that which certainly is — to 

 the change of the seasons. Now the constitution of ani- 

 mals susceptible of torpor, bears a relation to winter, simi- 



