HUTTONIAN THEORY. 117 



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the fame Hate nature has appointed that they 



fhould all return. 



115. It affords no prefumption againft the 

 reality of this progrefs, that, in refped: of man, 

 it is too flow to be immediately perceived : The 



fu, utmoft portion of it to which our experience can 



extend, is evanefcent, in comparifon with the 

 whole, and mult be regarded as the momentary 

 increment of a vail progreilion, circumfcribed 

 by no other limits than the duration of the 

 world. Time performs the office of integrating 

 the infiniteiiuial parts of which this progreilion 



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is made up j it colle(5ts them into one fum, and 

 produces from them an amount greater than any 

 that can be affigncd. 



116. While on the furface of the earth fo 

 much is every where going to decay, no new 

 production of mineral fubftances is found in any 



region acceffible to man. The initances of what 

 are called petri fad; ions, or the formation of fto- 

 ny fubftances by means of water, which we 



fometimes obferve, whether they be ferruginous 



concretions, or calcareous, or, as happens in fome 



i^ • rare cafes, iiliceous italadites, are too few in 



number, and too inconfiderable in extent, to be 

 deemed material exceptions to this general rule. 

 The bodies thus generated, alfo, are no fooner 

 formed, than they become fubject to waite and 

 diifolution, like all the other hard fubftances in 



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