NATURAL THEOLOGY. 7 



quences, to know that they tend powerfully to 

 restore to the air that purity which so many 

 causes are constantly impairing. 



II. In Water, what ought not a little to be ad- 

 mired, are those negative quahties which consti- 

 tute its purity. Had it been vinous, or oleaginous, 

 or acid ; had the sea been filled, or the rivers 

 flowed, with wine or milk, fish, constituted as they 

 are, must have died ; plants, constituted as they 

 are, would have withered ; the lives of animals 

 which feed upon plants must have perished. Its 

 very insipidity^ which is one of those negative 

 qualities, renders it the best of all menstrua. 

 Having no taste of its own, it becomes the sincere 

 vehicle of every other. Had there been a taste 

 in water, be it what it might, it would have infect- 

 ed every thing we ate or drank, with an importu- 

 nate repetition of the same flavour. 



Another thing in this element, not less to be ad- 

 mired, is the constant round which it travels ; and 

 by which, without suffering either adulteration or 

 waste, it is continually oflering itself to the wants 

 of the habitable globe. From the sea are exhaled 

 those vapours v/hich form the clouds : these clouds 

 descend in showers, which penetrating into the 

 crevices of the hills, supply springs ; which springs 

 flow in little streams into the valleys; and there 

 uniting, become rivers 4 which rivers, in return, 

 feed the ocean. So there is an incessant circula- 

 tion of the same fluid ; and not one drop probably 

 mor€ or less now than there was at the creation. 



