22 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



the odds were infinite but that they had sent it 

 round upon a wrong axis. And what would have 

 been the consequence? The dift'erence between 

 a permanent axis and another axis is this : When 

 a spheroid in a state of rotatory motion gets upon 

 a permanent axis, it keeps there ; it remains steady 

 and faithful to its position: its poles preserve their 

 direction with respect to the plane and to the centre 

 of its orbit: but, whilst it lurns upon an axis which 

 is not permanent, (and the number of those we 

 have seen infinitely exceeds the number of the 

 other,) it is always liable to shift and vacillate from 

 one axis to another, with a corresponding change 

 in the inclination of its poles. Therefore, if a 

 planet once set off revolving upon any other than 

 its shortest, or one of its longest axes, the poles on 

 its surface would keep perpetually changing, and 

 it never would attain a permanent axis of rotation. 

 The effect of this unfixedness and instability would 

 be, that the equatorial parts of the earth might 

 become the polar, or the polar the equatorial ; to 

 the utter destruction of plants and animals, which 

 are not capable of interchanging their situations, 

 but are respectively adapted to their own. As to 

 ourselves, instead of rejoicing in our temperate 

 zone, and annually preparing for the moderate 

 vicissitude, or rather the agreeable succession, of 

 seasons, which we experience and expect, we 

 might come to be locked up in the ice and dark- 

 ness of the arctic circle, with bodies neither inured 

 to its rigours, nor provided with shelter or defence 



