THEORY OF THE EARTH. 3 



If it be so interesting to us to follow, in the 

 infancy of our species, the almost obliterated traces 

 of extinct nations, why should it not also be so, 

 to search, amid the darkness of the infancy of the 

 Earth, for the traces of revolutions which have ta- 

 ken place anterior to the existence of all nations ? 

 We admire the power by which the human mind 

 has measured the motions of the celestial bodies, 

 which nature seemed to have concealed for ever 

 from our view. Genius and science have burst 

 the limits of space ; and observations, explained 

 by just reasoning, have unveiled the mechan- 

 ism of the universe. Would it not also be 

 glorious for man to burst the limits of time, and, 

 by means of observations, to ascertain the his- 

 tory of this world, and the succession of events 

 which preceded the birth of the human race? 

 Astronomers have undoubtedly advanced more 

 rapidly than naturalists ; and the present pe- 

 riod, with respect to the Theory of the Earth, 

 bears some resemblance to that in which some 

 philosophers fancied that the heavens were formed 

 of polished stones, and that the moon was of the 

 size of the Peleponnesus ; but after ANAXAGO- 

 RAS, came COPERNICUS and KEPLER, who 

 pointed the way to NEWTON ; and why should 

 not natural history also one day have its New- 

 ton? 



A 2 



