AND THE ATMOSPHERE. 223 



how much more is the attribute likely to belong 

 to those bodies which are essentially hard and 

 solid, whose natural tendency is to remain in a 

 quiescent and passive state; and which offer 

 resistance alone to the power by which they 

 are assailed. 



In describing, therefore, the phenomena of na- 

 ture, and in tracing those phenomena to their 

 producing causes, we must ever take things as 

 they subsist in their natural state. We must con- 

 sider the system of nature, to be a system found- 

 ed in symmetry, and in order ; and which is 

 governed by general laws, that these laws are 

 all subservient to the preservation of this eco- 

 nomy ; and that the objects dependent on this 

 economy are the elements, and that these ele- 

 ments proceed from the most minute and active, 

 to the most dense and passive. The laws, 

 therefore, by v/hich the different elements of 

 which the universe is constituted are governed, 

 are totally different from each other ; this dis- 

 tinction arises from the difference which sub- 

 sists in the quality of the matter of which they 

 are composed, and of the use for which they are 

 designed. Although it is very true, that these 

 elements are for the most part, at present, com- 

 bined and united ; there can be no doubt, that 

 they are the sources from whence the parts 

 proceed ; and that the laws by which the parts 

 are governed, are constantly exerted in order 



