208 
THE ELEMENTS. 
know how to boil, how to freeze, how to evaporate, how to 
make it fresh, how to make it run or spout out in what 
quantity and direction we please, without knowing what 
water is.” The observation of this excellent writer has 
more propriety in it now, than it bad at the time it was 
made: for the constitution, and the constituent parts of 
water, appear in some measure to have been lately discov¬ 
ered; yet it does not, I think, appear, that we can make 
any better or greater use of water since the discovery, than 
we did before it. 
We can never think of the elements, without reflecting 
upon the number of distinct uses which are consolidated 
in the same substance. The air supplies the lungs, sup¬ 
ports fire, conveys sound, reflects light, diffuses smells, 
gives rain, wafts ships, bears up birds. ’E$ vdarog ra navra; 
water, besides maintaining its own inhabitants, is the uni¬ 
versal nourisher of plants, and through them of terrestrial 
animals; is the basis of their juices and fluids; dilutes 
their food; quenches their thirst; floats their burdens. 
Fire warms, dissolves, enlightens; is the great promoter 
of vegetation and life, if not necessary to the support of 
both. 
We might enlarge, to almost any length we pleased, up¬ 
on each of these uses; but it appears to me almost suffi¬ 
cient to state them. The few remarks which I judge it 
necessary to add, are as follow: 
I. Air is essentially different from earth. There ap¬ 
pears to be no necessity for an atmosphere’s investing our 
globe; yet it does invest it: and we see how many, how 
various, and how important are the purposes which it 
answers to every order of animated, not to say of organ¬ 
ized beings, which are placed'upon the terrestrial surface. 
I think that every one of these uses will be understood 
upon the first mention of them, except it be that of reflect¬ 
ing light, which may be explained thus:—If I had the "pow¬ 
er of seeing only by means of rays coming directly from 
the sun, whenever I turned my back upon the luminary, 
I should find myself in darkness. If I had the power of 
seeing by reflected light, yet by means only of light 
reflected from solid masses, these masses would shine, 
indeed, and glisten, but it would be in the dark. The 
hemisphere, the sky, the world, could only be illuminated, 
as it is illuminated, by the light of the sun being from all 
sides, and in every direction, reflected to the eye by parti¬ 
cles, as numerous, as thickly scattered, and as widely 
diffused, as are those of the air. 
