138 EXCURSIONS ROUND LONDOlf. 



ments, that the youthful and unsophisticated 

 mind can be made most powerfully to per- 

 ceive and to feel the dignity of his origin, 

 and the true objects and end of creation. 

 Embracing, therefore, so favourable an op- 

 portunity, this worthy parent resumed those 

 instructions from which his pupils appeared 



to derive so much pleasure. 



A ' 



It is not difficult, my dear children, said 

 he, to determine what were the first sciences 

 to which man applied himself. But it is im- 

 possible to decide on the order in which they 

 attracted his notice. Almost all the sciences 

 have an equal right to priority. The first 

 inhabitants, who devoted themselves to a 

 pastoral life, must necessarily have invented 

 the science of numbers; and agriculture could 

 make no progress without the aid of astronomy. 



If the relations which exist between the 

 different productions of the earth and the 

 wants of man, are worthy of our admiration, 

 even the relations which exist between the 

 construction of the universe an/1 the wants 



i 



of the human species, are neither less re-- 

 markable. Without the succession of day 



