14 INTRODUCTION. 



things, between the tendency to derangement and 

 the conservative influences by which such a ten- 

 dency is counteracted, between the office of the 

 minutest speck and of the most general laws : it 

 will, we trust, be difficult or impossible to exclude 

 from our conception of this wonderful system, the 

 idea of a harmonizing, a preserving, a contriving, 

 an intending Mind ; of a Wisdom, Power, and 

 Goodness far exceeding the limits of our thoughts. 



CHAPTER IV. 

 Division of the Subject. 



IN making a survey of the universe, for the pur- 

 pose of pointing out such correspondencies and 

 adaptations as we have mentioned, we shall sup- 

 pose the general leading facts of the course of 

 nature to be known, and the explanations of their 

 causes now generally established among astro- 

 nomers and natural philosophers to be conceded. 

 We shall assume therefore that the earth is a 

 solid globe of ascertained magnitude, which travels 

 round the sun, in an orbit nearly circular, in a 

 period of about three hundred and sixty-five days 

 and a quarter, and in the mean time revolves, in 

 an inclined position, upon its own axis in about 

 twenty-four hours, thus producing the succession 

 of appearances and effects which constitute sea- 



