THE EARTH. 17 



and, like a virgin dedicated to the Deity, brings 

 forth nothing. In fact, those men who want to 

 compel every appearance and every irregularity 

 in nature into our service, and expatiate on their 

 benefits, combat that very morality which they 

 would seem to promote. God has permitted 

 thousands of natural evils to exist in the world, 

 because it is by their intervention that man is 

 capable of moral evil ; and he has permitted that 

 we should be subject to moral evil, that we might 

 do something to deserve eternal happiness, by 

 showing that we had rectitude to avoid it. 



CHAPTER IV. 



A REVIEW OF THE DIFFERENT THEORIES OF 

 THE EARTH. 



HUMAN invention has been exercised for several 

 ages to account for the various irregularities of 

 the earth. While those philosophers mentioned 

 in the last chapter, see nothing but beauty, sym- 

 metry, and order ; there are others, who look 

 upon the gloomy side of nature, enlarge on its 

 defects, and seem to consider the earth on which 

 they tread, as one scene of extensive desolation. * 

 Beneath its surface they observe minerals and 

 waters confusedly jumbled together; its different 

 beds of earth irregularly lying upon each other ; 

 mountains rising from places that once were 



* Buffon's Second Discourse. 

 VOL. I. B 



