HISTORY OF THE EARTH. 



CHAPTER 1. 



A SKETCH OF THE UNIVERSE. 



HHHE world may be considered as one vast 

 mansion, where man has been admitted 

 to enjoy, to admire, and to be grateful. The 

 first desires of savage nature are merely to 

 gratify the importunities of sensual appetite, 

 and to neglect the contemplation of things, 

 barely satisfied with their enjoyment : the 

 beauties of nature, and all the wonders of 

 creation, have but little charms for a being 

 taken up in obviating the wants of the day, 

 and anxious for precarious subsistence. 



Philosophers, therefore, who have testified 

 such surprise at the want of curiosity in the 

 ignorant, seem not to consider that they are 

 usually employed in making provisions of a 

 more important nature ; in providing rather 

 for the necessities than the amusements of 

 life. It is not till our more pressing wants are 

 sufficiently supplied, that we can attend to the 

 calls of curiosity; so that in every age scien- 

 tific refinement has been the latest effort of 

 human industry. 



But human curiosity, though at first slowly 

 excited, being at last possessed of leisure for 

 indulging its propensity, becomes one of the 

 greatest amusements of life, and gives higher 

 satisfactions than what even the senses can 

 afford. A man of this disposition turns all 

 nature into a magnificent theatre, replete with 

 objects of wonder and surprise, and fitted up 

 chiefly for his happiness and entertainment : 

 he industriously examines all things, from the 



minutest insect to the most finished animal; 

 and, when his limited organs can no longer 

 make the disquisition, he sends out his imagi- 

 nation upon new inquiries. 



Nothing, therefore, can be more august and 

 striking than the idea which his reason, aided 

 by his imagination, furnishes of the universe 

 around him. Astronomers tell us, that this 

 earth which we inhabit forms but a very mi- 

 nute part in that great assemblage of bodies 

 of which the world is composed. It is a mil- 

 lion of times less than the sun, by which it is 

 enlightened. The planets also, which, like 

 it, are subordinate to the sun's influence, ex- 

 ceed the earth a thousand times in magni- 

 tude. These, which were at first supposed 

 to wander in the heavens without any fixed 

 pathj and that took their name from their ap- 

 parent deviations, have long been found to 

 perform their circuits with great exactness 

 ancl strict regularity. They have been dis- 

 covered as forming, with our earth, a system 

 of bodies circulating round the sun, all obe- 

 dient to one law, and impelled by one com- 

 mon influence. 



Modern philosophy has taught us to be- 

 lieve, that, when the great Author of nature 

 began the work of creation, he chose to 

 operate by second causes; and that, suspend- 

 ing the constant exertion of his power, he 

 endued matter with a quality, by which the 

 universal economy of nature might be con- 



