ALthough, as I have hinted above, we do not propose to enter into any regular order with regard to particular details, yet previous to our engaging in any disquisitions at all, it may not be improper to take one general review of nature, in order to open and prepare the mind for the reception of such discoveries as may at first sight confound from their novelty, and such truths as may appear incredible from their overleaping the limits of our conception.
Every study ought to have its peculiar use not only with regard to mankind in general, but to the person to whom it is recommended in particular. It is not enough to say, such or such a branch of knowledge will, if pursued, be productive of some emolument to others; the person who is particularly solicited to pursue it ought to be informed in what respect it may be rendered serviceable to him in particular. Let mankind argue on the principles of stoicism and public spirit as long as they please, it would be difficult through the history of now almost six thousand years, to find any action ever so trivial, if attended with either labour or hazard, that has been performed merely for the sake of the publick in present, or of posterity in future, wherein some advantage either real or imaginary was not to accrue to the agent.
The motives to great and illustrious actions in the loud and busy occurrences of the world have been usually incited by ambition: Ambition, united with avarice, has aimed at present aggrandizement; ambition, spurred on by fancy, has made future fame its final goal. Yet have the actions thus produced generally tended to oppression or extravagance.
In the continued practice of moral opinions, and the support of religious tenets, many have run thro’ lives of pain and persecution; many have fallen voluntary martyrs in the midst of the most excruciating tortures, and gloried in the sufferings they have borne. The hope of future meed, the prospect of a certain happiness in another state, purchased by patient sufferings in this, have been at once their motive and support: yet these have frequently deserved the names of wild enthusiasm and headstrong superstition.
In the still calmer and more retired sphere of learned disquisition, the springs of action seem with greater disinterestedness to tend towards general utility. Fame is but rarely gained by studious lore; fortune still seldomer. The present therefore seems improbable, the future most uncertain. Ambition and interest here seem to have no effect. The motives then of action here are more concealed; yet motives still there are: for human nature finds its powers too limited, its inclinations too much clogg’d, to act without some point in view to rouse it to exertion.
From the concealment then, or rather from the non-appearance of these motives, arises the so common cry against the practice of natural philosophy, What is the use of this? A cry thus raised as easily is answered, The use is universal—But to explain that answer more may be necessary.
To those whose minds are too contracted to wander through the tracts of boundless space, to view at once with wonder, and follow with discernment, the motions of the heavenly bodies; and whilst contracted thus are still too dissipated to fix upon the objects placed before them, and pay the due attention to that mechanism, which, as the judicious Mr. Boyle most justly has observed, ‘is more conspicuous in nature’s watches than her clocks;’ to these, I say, the use of all these studies will still remain concealed.
But to the mind of clear and cool reflection, their use is plain and evident: they lead by smooth and regular gradations to peace and happiness: they raise the thoughts to humanity and devotion; serve to calm our ruffled passions, and, by a regular transition, convey our contemplations from the creature to its Creator.
In this light then let us consider them: look on the vast universe as one immense machine, whose complicated mechanism bespeaks an artist of almighty power and wisdom—a machine formed for our use, and consequently a most amazing proof of his benevolence and goodness—a machine whose several parts have all a wonderful connection, and all their several uses; which it is therefore a duty enjoined on us to endeavour at the discovering, and the discovery itself a reward granted for the performance of that duty.
Let us then first take a view of this mighty machine in the whole, and then descend to a more immediate disquisition of its several parts.
For this purpose then, reader, imagine yourself conveyed to some place beyond even the limits of infinite space; there cast your eyes around, and view the number of the stars which glitter in their several orbs. Small as they from our earth appear, behold them each a sun, shining with brightest lustre; each an immense mass of heat and light. Around them see numbers of worlds revolving in stated orbits, and in certain times. Lost as you are in the irregularity of their number and their motions, now fix your attention on a single one— return to our system only.
There, in the centre, the only place from whence the advantages of light and heat could be dispersed with equal impartiality to all the surrounding planets, and almost equally to every one in all the several periods of its course, behold the sun: a wondrous moss of fire, of so immense a bulk, glowing with so much brightness, and heated to a fervor so intense, as to diffuse its genial warmth, and spread its rays for millions of miles around it, and, tho’ burning for thousands of years, enduring no visible decrease. Next to him, although at a distance of thirty-two millions of miles from his body, rolls the small planet Mercury, revolving rapidly all the several periods of its season in eighty-eight of our days. Then in a larger circle, next comes Venus, forming its year in somewhat more than seven months. Her bulk is nearly equal to that of our globe; and in her course appears to us, sometimes a full bright star, reflecting the sun’s rays from the whole circle of her body; at others horned, and in a crescent, representing as it were in miniature the changes of the moon.
For these two planets, placed as they are within the immediate influence of the beams which emanate from the great fount of light, those rays are full sufficient for their purpose, unaided by extraneous assistance. Not so the Earth, the next in order of the planets; stationed where the sun’s rays diverge and dissipate, so as to afford only a fainter day, and endued with motions whereby sometimes that day is very short; in order to procure and to prolong to her the great blessing of light, she is attended by a satellite, a planet perpetually revolving round her body, which by receiving on its surface the rays of the great luminary, sends them back by reflection to the inhabitants of this globe; and here let us reflect on the amazing complication of various motions carried on at once in these two bodies! The daily revolution of the earth round its own axis, performed in four and twenty hours, combined with that in her own orbit, performed with a velocity of almost a thousand miles in a minute. The Moon turning round her own centre in twenty-seven days, rolling in the same space of time around her primary, and carrying on these motions calm and undisturbed, whilst she is borne along with equal swiftness by that primary in its annual progress—how wonderful a combination! how inconceivable to human fancy, the impulse by which it could be at first set to work! what less than infinite power could continue it in such unwearied regularity of rotation for so many ages! what but infinite wisdom could have contrived it in such just proportion, in such connected harmony, as to bring about every change of time and season which can be conducive either to the convenience, the use, or even to the pleasure of the inhabitants of both these globes!
In the fourth circle of the solar system rolls, in a period of almost two years, the planet Mars. Above him still, and in the realms of everlasting frost, and little more than constant twilight, the mighty Jupiter, superior to all the other planets from his stupendous bulk, revolves in a large circuit of twelve tedious years. Round him four moons continually attend, moving in different periods, to furnish his inhabitants with light, and entertain them with the almost infinite variety of their changes and aspects.
Still farther off, and at not much less than eight hundred millions of miles distance from the sun, in slow and stately progress Saturn moves, filling almost thirty years in one revolution. Five moons relieve his almost total darkness; nor would even the help of these avail to chear the gloom which his inhabitants experience, were they not aided by a still brighter band of reflected light formed by the ample ring whereby his body ever is encircled. Let fancy paint the glorious prospect of the face of heaven as it appears to them; where sometimes in one hemisphere at once are to be seen, (besides the brilliant arch now over their heads, and now forming to a certain height a luminary border to their horizon) five moons, shining with borrowed lustre, and at once glance presenting to their view all the several phenomena which with our single satellite we are obliged to wait for years to see; some in the full, some new, and some increscent; some undisturbed and clear, and others in eclipse. Eclipses too, unknown to our moon, formed by the interchangeable positions of the several satellites; and sometimes by the ring, behind which they remain a time concealed, and then emerge again.
Besides these regular, these well known periods, behold a set of bodies, whose errant progress extends sometimes far, far beyond the orbit of the farthest of these planets, and sometimes comes within a nearer distance to the sun than is the very nearest: In one part of their orbit moving slower than Saturn, and in another whirling swifter round the body of the sun than Mercury himself: sometimes in regions, to the cold of which the frosts of Greenland must be the dog star’s heat; sometimes in raging fires which the most wild imagination cannot form the least idea of; experiencing thus within one revolution, sometimes indeed of several hundred years, all the vicissitudes of times, of seasons, climates, and appearances, which all the other planets in their several orbits separately undergo; yet are these wandering masses, these phenomena, which from their rare appearances have been esteemed portents and prodigies, restrained by mighty power, their progress stated by almighty wisdom, and their wild courses ruled by the great hand that made them.
Such is the system, such the vast machine, of which our globe is but a single part, one wheel, and that no more than one of the most trivial; for of the bodies we have named, there are some exceeding it in bulk by many hundred times: yet let us come to a nearer view of that alone, and we shall find its mechanism such as, in our narrow comprehensions, might of itself exhaust the utmost power even of Omnipotence; yet this, compared with the whole system, how insignificant! and that whole system itself, if lost from out the universe, how little to be missed!—not more than would the smallest pebble conveyed from the extended coast of the wide ocean—what then is man! and what is his creator!
Contract we now our views, and fix them on our earth.—Behold the mighty mass, a fertile globe, of near eight thousand miles diameter, covered in every part with animated beings, formed into an infinite variey of different shapes, of different natures, and different inclinations, and consequently with an infinity of different wants: yet see upon its surface, within its bowels, or floating in its surrounding atmosphere, the means for the supplying all those wants; nay more, of gratifying every needless wish of those insatiate animals mankind; of yielding supernumerary delights, and leaving to the mind of just reflexion not even a single wish to form.
Observe the atmosphere wherewith to the height of a few miles the globe appears enwrapped. In it you see the treasure houses of the rain, of snow, and hail, let loose at proper periods to cool and to refresh the earth; to afford nourishment to all the vegetable world, and to supply the rivers and the springs with water: of clouds to overshadow and protect alike the animals and plants from the sun’s scorching heat, and to relieve that heat by seasonable showers. There you behold the prison of the winds which are sent forth at proper times to put in motion the stagnant air, and scatter all those noxious vapours which in receives by circulating through the several organs of animal life. The lightnings too, and thunder there are formed with more than chymic art; whose dreadful explosions, at the same time that they cool and purify the surrounding elements, seem more immediately to be the voice of the Almighty, warning his creatures of his wrath, at the same time that it declares his power.
Descend we to the surface. There observe the almost infinite variety of forms and of materials. See there high mountains reaching to the clouds, whose long extended ridges serve so many various purposes; as limits to great kingdoms, and bars to wild o’erbearing thirst of empire; as ribs whereby this mass of earth and water is strengthened and supported, as is the animal frame by massy bones; and lastly as immense alembics, to collect and to distil those waters which the sun’s heat evaporates from the wide surface of the ocean; thence to disperse them down their sides in numberless little rills, which, meeting and uniting in their progress, compose those mighty rivers whereby the several tracts of land which form the continents, are equally supplied with that most useful element, and which upon their bosoms bear the trade of many inland nations.
View next the vallies adorned with pleasing verdure, and variegated with a dazzling glow of beauteous colouring, affording food for miriads of animals, created for the use and the conveniencies of man—Observe the woods and forests waving in the wind, and yielding shelter from the storm and tempest, laden with fruits of every kind, and furnishing materials for building more convenient habitations. In other parts large wide extended heaths, covered with underwood, serve for the dwelling-place of various animals—Elsewhere see sandy deserts, thro’ which scarce any tract of feet can be discerned— rocks and vast cliffs which stop the ocean’s rage; and lastly, view the wide expanse of ocean, whose surface is enriched with all the treasures of the commercial world, and serves to bring about an intercourse between those very nations which it appears to bar from all communication—Within its bulk of waters miriads of animals of various forms and sizes find habitation and existence, from the immense floating island of the whale’s enormous body and the devouring shark, to the poor little lifeless limpet, which fixes to the rock, and there passes all the period of its being without either sight or motion— Around its borders see growing on every part mosses and corals, which with a kind of vegetation differing from other plants, and varying from each other, form groves for the smaller inhabitants of the waters to range among, and hide themselves from the perception of their voracious enemies; whilst its unfathomed bottom contains a world unknown to us of animals which never rise to the surface, or wander to the shores, and therefore must possess organs, respiration, and means for the preserving life, hitherto undiscoverable by anatomical researches, and unaccounted for by philosophical theory.
Let us, I say, but once reflect on this review of nature, and who can ask what use these studies have? What use, but to adapt and to prepare the mind for still more speculative and important reflections on the immensity of that great power by which these wonders have been all created: who, with his single fiat, has set this incomprehensible machine in motion, and who with a meer nod can stop that motion, and instantly reduce it to its original chaos. What use, but to point out to man, that proud presumptuous being, who dares to set himself in bold defiance to that power, how poor, how insignificant, how very a worm he is when placed in competition with many of the other productions of omnipotence!—What use, but to inspire the true philosopher with the most humble reverence, with the most ardent gratitude, and with the deepest sense of that beneficence which has placed him in a world where he remains surrounded with ten thousand miracles, supplied with every thing his real wants can stand in need of, or his unbounded wishes form in fancy: and sees himself possessed of all this by the immediate kindness of a power which claims from him no other recompense but his enjoying them with wonder and with gratitude, and paying the small tribute of praise to him who gave them.