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SECT. II. 
THE THREE KINGDOMS OF NATURE. 
Hail, Sovereign Goodness ! All-productive Mind ! 
On all thy works, thyself inscrib’d we find: 
How various all, how variously endow’d ! 
How great their number, and each part how good ! 
How perfect then must the Great Parent shine, 
Who, with one act of energy divine, 
Laid the vast plan, and finish’d the design! 
Blacklock. 
Let ns suppose a man just fashioned by the hands of his Creator, 
perfectly possessed of all his faculties, taken, to employ the allusion of 
Cicero *, from the profoundest cavern of the earth, and made to behold at 
once the wonders of creation. We will suppose the sun just rising, and 
streaking with gold the clouds, the mists removing like a veil from the 
mountain’s top; in a few minutes his effulgent rays darted every where, and 
* Aristotle very well observes, c If there were men, whose habitations had been always under 
‘ ground, in great and commodious houses, adorned with statues and pictures, furnished with every 
‘ thing, which they, who are reputed happy, abound with; and if, without stirring from thence, they 
‘ should be informed of a certain divine power and majesty, and after some time the earth should 
‘ open, and they should quit their dark abode to come to us; where they should immediately behold 
‘ the earth, the seas, the heavens; should consider the vast extent of the clouds, and force of the 
‘ winds; should see the sun, and observe his grandeur and beauty, and perceive that day is occasioned 
‘ by the diffusion of his light through the sky; and when night has obscured the earth, they should 
f contemplate the heavens bespangled and adorned with stars; the surprising variety of the moon, in 
‘ her increase and wane; the rising and setting of all the stars, and the inviolable regularity of their 
‘ courses; when,’ says he, ‘ they should see these things, they would undoubtedly conclude that 
e there are gods, and that these are their mighty works.’ Thus far Aristotle.—Let us imagine also as 
great darkness as was formerly occasioned by the irruption of the fires of Mount JE tna, which are said 
to have obscured the adjacent countries for two days, that one man could not know another; but, on 
the third, when the sun appeared, they seemed to be risen from the dead. Now, if we should be sud¬ 
denly brought from a state of eternal darkness to see the light, how beautiful would the heavens 
seem ! But, being' daily accustomed to behold them, oiu' minds are not affected, nor troubled to search 
into the principles of what is always in view; as if the novelty, rather than the importance of 
things, ought to excite our curiosity. 
Cicero on the Nature of the Gods. 
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