10 
yet is the mind feasted to fulness ; since, at the same time, the 
several processes, serving to support animal life, and the infinitely 
varied modes of organization, which exist even in the same being, 
cannot fail to excite an eager desire, to obtain still further know- 
ledge, respecting those astonishing operations, in which although 
the eftects are so obvious and even palpable, the immediate causes 
demand the closest investigation for their discovery. In conse- 
quence of this, although the mind obtains a considerable fund of 
pleasing and positive instruction, it is so far from experiencing the 
torpor of satiety ; that it looks forward, with increased ardour, to 
the extension of its acquisitions. 
The science, into the study of which I propose to lead you, also 
possesses these advantages, in a very eminent degree. You will be 
taught, clearly, by it, that the formative and preservative powers, 
appointed by the Almighty, are momentarily exerted on the smallest 
particles of matter ; that nature, by which I mean the personifica- 
tion of these powers, is constantly employed also on the largest, and 
apparently most inert masses of matter, in accomplishing the several 
processes, necessary for the support and continuance of the earth, 
and its inhabitants. You will behold her, incessantly labouring in 
the deep recesses of the earth; as in the laboratory of the universe, 
reducing to form and beauty, the mutilated wrecks of former ages. 
Nor can the mind be much more pleasingly exercised, in the 
regions of conjecture, than by the curious inquiries to which the 
contemplations of objects, so interesting, must necessarily lead. 
Many of the curiously figured stones, which will offer themselves to 
your observation, you will be pleased in finding, on a close obser- 
vation, were once, as I have already remarked, beings endowed with 
the powers and faculties of vegetable or animal life. You will, by 
careful comparison, discover, that several species of these are still 
to be found, in a living state ; but, most commonly, in parts of the 
world very remote from those, in which their remains are thus won- 
