l'HE VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS. 107 



how long you will have counted before yea are firmly 

 convinced that the engine has been so adjusted that it 

 will continue, while its motion is maintained, to produce 

 the same series of natural numbers ? Some minds are so 

 constituted that, after passing the first hundred terms, 

 they will be satisfied that they are acquainted with the 

 law. After seeing five hundred terms few will doubt, and 

 after the fifty- thousandth term the propensity to believe 

 that the succeeding term will be fifty thousand and one, 

 will be almost irresistible. That the term will be fifty 

 thousand and one ; and the same regular succession will 

 continue ; the five millionth and the fifty millionth term 

 will still appear in their expected order, and one unbro- 

 ken chain of natural numbers will pass before your eyes, 

 from one up to one hundred million. 



** True to the vast induction which has been made, the 

 next succeeding term will be one hundred million and 

 one ; but the next number presented by the rim of the 

 wheel, instead of being one hundred million and two, is 

 one hundred million ten thousand and two. The whea^ 

 series, from the commencement, being thus, — 



1 • 



2 



3 



4 



5 



99,999,999 

 100,000,000 

 regularly as far as 100,000,001 



100,010,002 the law changes. 



100,030,003 

 100,060,004 

 100,100,005 

 100,150,006 

 100,210,007 

 100,280,008 



(< The law which seemed at first to govern this series 

 failed at the hundred million and second term. This 



