296 ON THE HUMAN FACULTIES, 



ation, and comparative magnitude, and distances 

 of the planetary bodies, their motions round their 

 grand centre of attraction, the sun, and in the 

 circles of their own orbits; and to predict with 

 unfailing nicety, and certainty, the period and 

 duration of the eclipses, to which, in the variation 

 of their relative positions, they are occasionally 

 liable; to remove the superstitious apprehensions 

 entertained in former times, upon the sudden ap- 

 pearance of cornets, by demonstrating their 

 tracks among the other heavenly bodies, in 

 their appmach to, and recession from, the sun, 

 while performing their own revolutions ; and that, 

 like the planets, they are opake bodies, deriving 

 their lustre from that great luminary ; to explain 

 the phases, or changes of the moon, the causes 

 of the alternation of nights and days, and of 

 the variations of the seasons ; the doctrine of 

 the tides, and the laws of gravitation ; to lay 

 down with accuracy, the latitude, and longitude 

 of each place throughout the globe ; and to 

 make those improvements in navigation, which 

 early mankind could never have deemed prac- 

 ticable. 



By the science of geology, the structure of 

 the crust of the globe, its different strata, its 

 volcanoes, and other phenomena have been ex- 

 plained ; and the great deluge to which the 

 earth had formerly been exposed, satisfactorily 

 accounted for. 



By hydrology, the doctrine of the ocean 



