ments of the animal machine, or even to examine into the structure of some of the nobler parts. The organization of the brain, the principles of life, of sensation, and of muscular motion, are all incomprehensible. They are subjects concerning which the knowledge of the philosopher scarcely exceeds that of a child. The same observation applies to those instinctive principles which are so conspicuous in the brute creation, and so essential to the preservation of life and the continuance of the species: in many cases so much above, and in many so much below the faculty of reason.

But if our knowledge is so imperfect of those objects which exist upon the superficies of the earth, and which, as it were, obtrude themselves upon our notice, what can we be expected to know of what is passing beneath its surface? The most stupendous excavations of human art penetrate but a very little way into what may be called the external rind of this capacious globe: and here we are soon lost in a world of wonders. By what tremendous explo

sion the shell of the earth has been broken and dislocated, so that its once regular strata have been burst asunder and heaved in every possible direction, is a tale that no history can unfold, and a phenomenon which no philosophy can explain. Nor can human sagacity acquire any knowledge of the various and wonderful processes which are continually carrying on in the bowels of the earth, and of the formation of metals, marbles, and gems, and all other mineral substances, of which many have been discovered and applied to various important uses, and many more doubtless remain hitherto unknown.

The ocean is an abyss of unexplored wonders abounding with an infinite variety of vegetable productions, and swarming with myriads of inhabitants of various magnitudes and powers, of different orders and degrees: some, perhaps, approximating to the human form, and to rational existence; others expanding to vast and enormous bulk, which nevertheless revel and sport at

* See Whitehurst's Theory of the Earth.

their ease in the trackless regions of the waters, the greater part far beyond the knowledge and the control of man. In a word, wherever we turn our eyes new scenes of wonder present themselves to our regard. Every hill and every valley, every fountain and every field, every tree and every plant, every blade of grass, every drop of water, and every grain of sand, is pregnant with wonders too great for man to unfold.

That beings, who possess a knowledge so very contracted of the limited spot in which they are destined to reside, should be able to extend their views so as to form any just idea of the system of worlds with which they are surrounded, and even to enlarge their conceptions so as to obtain a glimpse of the admirable structure of the universe itself, is truly wonderful; and it is astonishing to think to what a variety of particulars, and to what great extent and certainty this sublime science is carried; so that the structure of the solar system, the number, the distances, the situations,

the magnitudes, the motions, the mutual aspects and bearings, the direct and disturbing influences of the heavenly bodies upon each other, and the laws by which each and all of them are governed, are calculated with mathematical precision; and, from what is known, it is justly concluded that the immensity of the universe is proportionate to the immensity of the power, the wisdom, and the benevolence of its divine Author.

But when we compare the circle of light with the surrounding circle of darkness; when we contrast the little that is known with the immensity that is unknown, we soon shrink into our original insignificance, our pride is humbled to the very dust, and we, with shame, recall our eulogiums upon the extent of human knowledge.

The portion of creation to which our personal observation extends bears so scanty a relation to the unbounded universe, that, were the whole of it annihilated, it would no more be missed by an eye which could comprehend the whole,

than a grain of sand upon the shore, or a drop of water in the ocean: and where human knowledge is most extensive, it is, in fact, little better than splendid ignorance. Reason and analogy teach that the planetary worlds are habitable like the earth, and that every fixed star is the sun and centre of a system of inhabited worlds; and no doubt every planet contains an immense variety of productions adapted to the nature, circumstances, and wants of its various inhabitants: but what these productions are, and what kind of beings inhabit the numerous systems which occupy, and, if I may so express it, which throng unbounded space, we may not presume even to conjecture. That the inhabitants of the planetary worlds are, in personal structure, and in the constitution of their nature, something similar to those which reside on the surface of this globe, we may, perhaps, be allowed to surmise, because the provision which is made for their accommodation, by the diurnal and annual revolutions of their planets, and by