Puslapio vaizdai
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left our food become fatal, and left we mistake disease for health. We must now avoid the infect, unless we are certain it has no fting; we must forbear the flower, unless we are fure its fragrance is not injurious; not only fo, but the phenomena which furround our earth, the air, the meteors, are not as they were originally: we know storms and tempests by experience; thunder and lightning, the rolling billows, the mountainous furge; and we also wish to inquire into their causes, and into their properties.

By the experiments of our predeceffors, by the labours of many intelligent men, we are enabled to give reasonable anfwers to questions on thefe fubjects, and to acquire a competent knowledge of the operations of nature; not, indeed, that we pretend ability to account for all, or to develope every mystery of nature: we admit that much remains hitherto unexplored, much that never will be explored. It is high as heaven, what can we do; deep as hell, what can we know.' Yet, from this our inevitable and insuperable ignorance, we will take occasion to acknowledge the greatness of the univerfal Author, and to confefs our own humble abilities. We are not yet difembodied fpirits, we are not yet immortals at liberty, but furrounded by numerous wants, and tenants of tabernacles

of clay.

Come then, my friends, to whom knowledge opens her copious ftores, to whom liberal Nature offers her choiceft treafures, come, and, like rationals, enjoy rational fatisfaction; inspect the glorious Sun, the lucid Moon, or "kindle your

"devotion at the Stars." Secure from the war of elements, inveftigate their caufes; for us the ftorm fhall roll, the thunder burst, the lightnings flash; for us the waves shall roar, the yawning abyfs foam; the volcano shall emit fulphureous fmoke, and flames as from Hell; earth too fhall tremble, while we feel in safety its percuffions, and stand unmoved amidst a falling world.

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Or, if inclined for diverfion, we will indulge the ludicrous; will applaud the cunning of the fox, or fmile at the grin of the baboon, or laugh at the grimaces of the monkey; will accompany their robberies, and enjoy the joke of a fruit-stealing expedition. For leffons of domestic life we will admire the industry of the beaver, or the anxiety of the hen over her callow brood; we will visit the laborious bee, and taste the sweets of honeft diligence; we will pluck the blushing rose, and gather every flower of the spring; we will crush the luscious berry, and quaff the blood of the grape, without difguft, without repletion, without inebriety.

We may often learn rational information; birds who, to secure their nefts, hang them on the extreme leaves of trees, or thofe, who make the rock their aerie, fhall teach us prudence, and the half-reasoning elephant shall raise our admiration. Not fatisfied with this, we will turn inwards our inspection, and when we there discover principles and qualities fuperior to any bestowed elsewhere, it fhall excite our wishes, our refolutions, our endeavours, to correfpondent dignity of fentiment and deportment.

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I would

I would have our SURVEYS of NATURE produce much fuch effects as a certain circumftance produced upon MOSES: Mofes was a well-informed Naturalift, was "learned in all the wifdom of the Egyptians,' and much more, which the wisdom of the Egyptians could not teach him. When wandering among the forefts of Midian, he faw a bush (a palm-tree, if you please) burning, yet not confumed; at firft, we may fuppofe, he regarded it as an accidental conflagration; we may imagine him saying, 'the 'fire will foon be extinguished, having burned down the 'tree;' but when no such event enfues, when the brilliant fplendour injures not the verdant bush, it excites his attention, the inquifitive fpirit of the Naturalift prevails, and he refolves to examine it. I will now turn afide, and fee this great fight, wherefore the bush is not confumed.' You know the iffue of the ftory; that the contemplative MOSES became here the man of God, and the curiofity of the Naturalift ended in the devotion of the prophet.

LADIES and GENTLEMEN,

I beg to be indulged in adding a remark on the methods of studying nature: I am very well aware of the force of regularity, that confusion is every way hurtful, and order extremely beneficial; and yet, Nature has taken fuch liberties, that order is by no means uniformly marked out, or uniformly affented to by Naturalifts. Some have shackled themselves by fyftem, and joined together what Nature put asunder; they have divided and claffed, till the F

had

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members of fome of their classes excite a fmile. While others, afferting that Nature has no system, suppose, that in having no system themselves, they follow Nature. Fair and foftly, if you please; all productions of Nature are not alike-in proportions, in fize, or in manners; their differences, I mean the most obvious, may therefore diftinguish between them, and those which are nearest allied to each other, may justly be arranged together. For my own part, I propose no very close arrangement in the course of these Lectures, but fhall do my ́endeavour that the interval between the preceding and the following may not be too extensive, that I may not seem to jump, at leaft, without obvious occafion; but that, what is previously suggested, may open a way for the eafy introduction of fubfequent remarks. And I shall efteem myself happy, if what I may have the honour to propose shall be found fufficiently regular, familiar, and interefting, to be treasured up in your memory, and especially, if it prove beneficial in your future fituations in life.

LE C

LECTURE II.

"O thou that with furpaffing glory crown'd,
Look'ft from thy fole dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whofe fight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd heads: To thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
O SUN! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell,-how glorious once above thy sphere,
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down.”

Paradife Loft, Book IV.

UCH, LADIES and GENTLEMEN, was the addrefs of

SUCH,

the malignant fpirit to our fplendid luminary; of whofe beneficial effects we entertain the most honourable opinion; without one diffenting voice, afcribing to the Sun innumerable and invaluable influences.

If idolatrous worship may be in any degree palliated, that paid to the Sun seems to have had the greatest shew of reason to urge in its defence: without his irradiating beams, what were the globe we inhabit but a cheerless void? without his invigorating heat, it were an idle wafte. How melancholy would be all mankind, had they intelligence that at such a time his splendour would become extinct, or that he would fet to rife no more!

No. 2.

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