229 



not only lost all these advantages, which are so necessary 

 for both animals and vegetables, but had suffered also 

 such inconveniences, as neither of these could possibly 

 bear. For near half the year, we should have been in 

 perpetual darkness, the consequence of which would 

 have beenj that baleful damps, by the preceding heat, 

 generated and raised, would have fallen, which would 

 have stifled all animals. Or had they survived that, 

 snow, ice, and frost, would not only have locked up 

 all fluids, but would have froze the blood and spirits 

 in the channels of all the animals we are acquainted 

 with. 



Again, in the enlightened half of the year, we should 

 have had huge deluges of water, from the preceding 

 snow, which likewise would have produced suffocating 

 mists. Next, all our ground would have turned into a 

 stiff, stinking puddle, being in a manner dissolved by the 

 snow water. Then would sultry heats and a burning 

 air, have scorched, and chopped the earth, and galled 

 the animal tribes, so that they would have found rest, 

 neither in houses not dens, till at last, the Wood and 

 spirit of all the animals of our globe, would be quite 

 exhaled, or by the violent agitation thereof, they would 

 turn delirious. 



Upon all these accounts, the rotation of the earth, 

 about her axis, is one of the most signal instances of di- 

 vine wisdom. 



