308 Profefor WirriAMs on Earthquakes. 
{teady regard to them, have been obferved.—And this has been 
manifeft and appatent in the fame degree as our knowledge of 
any fubje&t has been advanced. There was a time when uni- 
verfal confufion and diforder were fuppofed to prevail in the 
courfes, motions and appearances of the heavenly bodies. But 
as the knowledge of the true aftronomy increafed, the moft 
perfect order, harmony and proportion has been difcovered im 
the motion and appearance of every ftar, planet and comet.— 
And it is now well known, that all the fuppofed irregularity in 
any of thefe bodies, was nothing more than want of knowledge, 
. and'confufion of ideas in the obferver. If we may reafon from 
analogy, the conclufion will be, that it 1s the fame in all other 
cafes. It can hardly be doubted, therefore, but that there is 
the fame harmony, rule and order,—the fame general and ftated 
laws, in the caufes and operations of earthquakes, as there are 
in all other events of nature. No reafon can be affigned why 
thee a alone, of all the works of Gon, fhould be made up of 
irregu Lui and confufion. It muft, therefore, be fuppofed, 
that earthquakes (like all other events that depend on natural 
. caufes) are fubje& to certain and determinate laws and rules, 
which are in themfelves. conftant, regular and harmonious,— 
"whether thefe laws, or this regularity, is known to. us or not. 
_ The ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans, by a long courfe of 
_obfervations, ate faid to have been able to foretell the appearance 
. of comets, and the approach of earthquakes.* The greateft 
i philofophers have fuppofed their predictions of this kind were 
- founded not on any knowledge they had of the laws and powers 
of. mature, but on the vain arts of judicial aftrology. This 
am e the enact is, however, to be withed, that we 
could 
