THE EARTH. 5 



other worlds and distant systems, what obstacles 

 may be found to oppose their progress, to accele- 

 rate their motions, or retard their return ? 



But what we have hitherto attempted to sketch, 

 is but a small part of that great fabric in which 

 the Deity has thought proper to manifest his wis- 

 dom and omnipotence. There are multitudes of 

 other bodies dispersed over the face of the hea- 

 vens, that lie too remote for examination : these 

 have no motion, such as the planets are found to 

 possess, and are, therefore, called fixed stars; 

 and, from their extreme brilliancy, and their im- 

 mense distance, philosophers have been induced 

 to suppose them to be suns, resembling that 

 which enlivens our system : As the imagination 

 also, once excited, is seldom content to stop, it 

 has furnished each with an attendant system of 

 planets belonging to itself, and has even induced 

 some to deplore the fate of those systems, whose 

 imagined suns, which sometimes happens, have 

 become no longer visible. 



But conjectures of this kind, which no reason- 

 ing can ascertain, nor experiment reach, are rather 

 amusing than useful. Though we see the great- 

 ness and wisdom of the Deity in all the seeming 

 worlds that surround us, it is our chief concern 

 to trace him in that which we inhabit. The ex- 

 amination of the earth, the wonders of its contriv- 

 ance, the history of its advantages, or of the 

 seeming defects in its formation, are the proper 

 business of the natural historian. A description 

 of this earth y its animals, vegetables, and minerals, 

 is the most delightful entertainment the mind can 



