THE HARVEST MOON. 141 



qualities besides poetical beauty, tells us, that Na- 

 ture is a WHOLE, and that the parts which we would 

 suppose to be the most distant and unconnected 

 yet co-operate with each other in the most perfect 

 and wonderful manner. 



In consequence of that obliquity in the earth's 

 path round the sun which gives summer and winter 

 alternately to the two hemispheres, and a regular 

 succession of the four seasons to all the temperate 

 latitudes, and in consequence of an additional obli- 

 quity in the moon's path round the earth, the full 

 moon rises just at sunset for about a week together. 

 That takes place during the harvest ; its mean sea- 

 son being about the twenty-second of September, 

 and the middle of it never more than fifteen days 

 sooner or later than that. That is called the har- 

 vest moon, and though in the early districts, where 

 there is plenty of solar action to ripen the crops, it 

 be not much heeded, it is very beneficial in the cold 

 districts : and as the obliquity to which it is owing in- 

 creases as the latitude increases, the harvest moon 

 continues for the greatest number of nights in the 

 cold climates. Thus we see how far the influence 

 of what we would deem a simple cause extends in 

 the operations of nature, and how well that which 

 our ignorance is apt to regard as a disadvantage 

 works for our good. Indeed, there is not an object 

 or an occurrence in nature which has not its use, 

 if we would but look for it ; and it is just because we 

 are ignorant of the uses of little things that we fail 

 in the execution of great ones. 



It is in the perceiving of these connexions which 

 appear remote and unexpected, that men who com- 

 bine science and observation together have so much 

 the advantage of mere men of science or mere sur- 

 face observers. One would not at first suppose that 

 the study of the mere motions of the earth and moon, 

 and the fact that the light of the moon is a secondary 

 or reflected light, had any thing to do with the 

 whitening of linen or the ripening of corn ; and yet 



