THE EaKTH. 17 



prejudice ; namely, thut of silencing all inquiry, by alleging the 

 benefits we receive from a thing, instead of investigating the 

 cause of its production. If I inquire how a mountain came to 

 be formed ; such a reasoner, enumerating its benefits, answers, 

 because God knew it would be useful. If I demand the cause 

 of an earthquake, he finds some good produced by it, and alleges 

 that as the cause of its explosion. Thus such an inquirer has 

 constantly some ready reason for every appearance in nature, 

 which serves to swell his periods, and give splendpur to his de. 

 clamation ; every thing about him is, on some account or other, 

 declared to be good ; and he thinks it presumption to scrutinize 

 into its defects, or to endeavour to imagine how it might be 

 better. Such wTiters, and there are many such, add very little 

 to the advancement of knowledge. It is finely remarked by 

 Bacon, that the investigation of final causes* is a barren study ; 

 and like a \drgin dedicated to the Deity, brings forth nothing. 

 In fact, those men who want to compel every appearance and 

 every irregularity in nature into our service, and expatiate on 

 their benefits, combat that very morality which they would seem 

 to promote. God has permitted thousands of natural evils to 

 exist in the world, because it is by their intervention that man 

 is capable of moral evil; and he has permitted that we should 

 be subject to moral evil, that we might do something to deserve 

 eternal happiness, by showing that we had rectitude to avoid it 



CHAP. IV. 



A REVIEW OF THE DIFFERENT THEORIES OF THE EARTH. 



Human invention has been exjercised for several ages to account 

 for the various iiregularities of the earth. While those philo- 

 sophers, mentioned in the last chapter, see nothing but beauty, 

 symmetry, and order; there are others, who look upon the 

 gloomy side of nature, enlarge on its defects, and seem to con- 

 Elder the earth, on which they tread, as one scene of extensive 

 desolation.' Beneath its surface they observe minerals and 

 waters confusedly jumbled together ; its diflferent beds of earth 



2 Investigatio cansarum finalium sterilLs est, et veluti virgo Deo dedicata 

 nil p&rit. 



3 BuSbn's second discoiirset 



b3 



