OF THE SEA AND LAND. 57 



the more shall we learn to reverence Him who re- 

 gulates the whole. 



But there is a long train of intermediate changes, 

 between the first and the last stages of this Globe: 

 constituting the progression of the Earth, and indicat- 

 ing, much more demonstrably, these attributes of the 

 Author of the Universe. They have formed the sub- 

 jects of this chapter: but I should neither do justice 

 to Geology, nor perform that duty which all Natural 

 history owes, if I did not, though but briefly, show 

 how they illustrate those. 



I have shown in the last chapter, that the constant 

 augmentation of limestone in the present earth will 

 become the cause of a better subsequent one; as I have 

 traced, in all its preceding history, a steady progres- 

 sion onwards, from a worse to a better state. But 

 that which is true of its successive forms is equally 

 true of each condition. Every new Earth is better 

 than the preceding ; but every new earth is also better 

 at its termination than it was at the commencement. 

 I argue this from the history of our own : and that is 

 the history to which I must now recur, under these 

 views of k the Conduct of the Deity respecting Man. 

 Yet are these the ennobling views of Nature and its 

 Great^ Author, which ignorance and fanaticism would 

 oppose, if they knew them and which they impede 

 because their minds are too narrow to comprehend the 

 least part of the works of The Incomprehensible. 



The present Earth is enlarging in extent and im- 

 proving in fertility : thus has it progressively enlarged 

 and improved since the day on which it was first ar- 

 ranged : and thus will it continue to enlarge and im- 

 prove till the period of its destiny shall arrive. And 

 the physical history of the Earth is the Moral history 

 of Man : while even Man himself becomes, in the 



