HISTORY OF THE EARTH. 



CHAPTER I. 



A SKETCH OF THE UNIVERSE. 



THE World may be considered as one vast mansion, where man ha 

 been admitted to enjoy, to admire, and to be grateful. The first de- 

 sires of savage nature are merely to gratify the importunities of sen- 

 sual appetite, and to neglect the contemplation of things, barely satis- 

 fied 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 pro- 

 viding 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 scientific refine- 

 ment 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 indus 

 triously 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 imagination upon new inquiries. 



Nothing, therefore, can be more august and striking than the idea 



hich 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 minute part in that great assemblage of bodies 

 of which the world is composed. It is a million of times less than the 

 sun, by which it is enlightened. The planets also, which, like it, are 

 subordinate to the sun's influence, exceed the earth a thousand times 

 in magnitude. These, which were at first supposed to wander in the 

 heavens without any fixed path, and that took their name from their 

 apparent deviations, have long been found to perform their circuits 

 with great exactness and strict regularity. They have been discover- 

 ed as forming, with our earth, a system of bodies circulating round the 

 sun, all obodient to one law, and impelled by one common influenr r>. 



