123 



the celestial bodies shows that it is an active agent in each. Nor 

 is this universal power necessarily confined to our own system, 

 but probably extends as far as telescopic vision can determine in 

 the immensity of the works of the creation. This wonderful power 

 is present in all things visible and invisible, like a mysterious and 

 universal spirit controlling the vast works of the universe. Yet 

 although so vast and so various in its effects, its laws of action 

 are so simple as to be within the reach of our comprehension. 

 It is like a wheel within a wheel working myriads of other 

 wheels within its sphere of action ; we find it in the minutest 

 microscopic crystal, in the aggregation of crystals which con- 

 stitute a continent, in a word, in our globe bodily ; this again 

 governed by the magnetism of the sun, and probably the sun by 

 a still larger body, until we are lost in its immensity. Although 

 the harmony and uniformity of the system may be thus pre- 

 served for ever, exhibiting no change, no beginning nor ending, 

 yet we find in our terrestrial habitation, i. e. the earth, the seat 

 of man, traces of beginning and ending : the spot on which we 

 have our existence will by the same harmonious law of nature, 

 independent of the globe itself, ultimately decay, and be reduced 

 to its primary elements at the north pole. Great Britain, and 

 other countries which are situated in the same parallel, will in a 

 very few thousand years disappear from the surface of the globe, 

 and other more southerly lands will take their place. Hence 

 geology is not that crude, inconsistent and useless science which 

 some have imagined it to be ; on the contrary, it cannot be sur- 

 passed in its utility nor in the sublimity of its objects : not only 

 is it next to astronomy, but it also forms part of one and the 

 same system of physical operations ; and besides, it instructs us 

 " that we are placed in a part of a scheme — not a fixed but pro- 

 gressive one — every way incomprehensible ; incomprehensible 

 in a measure equally with respect to what has been, what now 

 is, and what shall be hereafter." 



