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importance, how close is the fuitableness of the earth and fea to their several inhabitants; and of these inhabitants to the places of their appointed refidence?

Take the earth as it is; and confider the correfpondency of the powers of its inhabitants with the properties and condition of the foil which they tread. Take the inhabitants as they are; and confider the substances which the earth yields for their use. They can fcratch its furface, and its furface supplies all which they want. This is the length of their faculties; and fuch is the conftitution of the globe, and their own, that this is fufficient for all their occafions.

When we pass from the earth to the fea, from land to water, we pass through a great change; but an adequate change accompanies us of animal forms and functions, of animal capacities and wants, fo that correspondency remains. The earth in its nature is very different from the fea, and the fea from the earth; but one accords with its inhabitants, as exactly as the other.

VII. The laft relation of this kind which I shall mention is that of fleep to night. And it appears to me to be a relation which was

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exprefsly intended.

Two points are ma

nifeft: first, that the animal frame requires fleep; fecondly, that night brings with it a filence, and a ceffation of activity, which allows of fleep being taken without interruption, and without lofs. Animal existence is made up of action and slumber : nature has provided a season for each. Au animal, which stood not in need of reft, would always live in daylight. An animal, which, though made for action, and delighting in action, must have its strength repaired by fleep, meets by its conftitution the returns of day and night. In the human fpecies for inftance, were the bustle, the labour, the motion of life, upheld by the conftant prefence of light, fleep could not be enjoyed without being disturbed by noife, and without expence of that time, which the eagerness of private interest would not contentedly refign. It is happy therefore for this part of the creation, I mean that it is conformable to the frame and wants of their conftitution, that nature, by the very difpofition of her elements, has commanded, as it were, and impofed upon them, at moderate intervals, a general intermiffion of their toils, their occupations, and pursuits.

But

But it is not for man, either folely or principally, that night is made. Inferior, but lefs perverted natures, tafte its folace, and expect its return, with greater exactness and advantage than he does. I have often obferved, and never obferved but to admire, the fatisfaction no less than the regularity, with which the greatest part of the irrational world yield to this foft neceffity, this grateful viciffitude; how.comfortably, the birds of the air, for example, addrefs themselves to the repofe of the evening; with what alertness they resume the activity of the day.

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Nor does it disturb our argument to confefs, that certain fpecies of animals are in motion. during the night, and at reft in the day. With respect even to them it is ftill true, that there is a change of condition in the animal, and an external change correfponding with it. There is fill the relation, though inverted. The fact is, that the repose of other animals. fets these at liberty, and invites them to their food or their sport.

If the relation of fleep to night, and, in fome inftances, its converse, be real, we cannot reflect without amazement upon the extent to which it carries us. Day and night are things clofe

Y

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close to us the change applies immediately
to our fenfations: of all the phænomena of
nature, it is the moft familiar to our ex-
perience: but, in its caufe, it belongs to the
great motions which are paffing in the hea-
Whilft the earth glides round her
axle, fhe minifters to the alternate neceffities
of the animals dwelling upon her surface, at
the fame time that the obeys the influence of
those attractions which regulate the order of
many thousand worlds.
The relation there-

vens.

fore of fleep to night, is the relation of the inhabitants of the earth to the rotation of their globe; probably it is more it is a relation to the fyftem, of which that globe is a part; and, ftill further, to the congregation of systems, of which theirs is only one. If this account be true, it connects the meaneft individual with the universe itself; a chicken roosting upon its perch, with the spheres revolving in the firmament.

But if any one object to our representation, that the fucceffion of day and night, or the rotation of the earth upon which it depends, is not refolvible into central attraction, we will refer him to that which certainly is,-to the change of the feafons. Now the conftitu

tion of animals fufceptible of torpor, bears a relation to winter, fimilar to that which fleep bears to night. Against not only the cold, but the want of food, which the approach of winter induces, the preferver of the world has provided, in many animals by migration, in many others by torpor. As one example out of a thousand, the bat, if it did not fleep through the winter, muft have ftarved, as the moths and flying infects, upon which it feeds, disappear. But the tranfition from fummer to winter carries us into the very midst of phyfical aftronomy, that is to fay, into the midst of thofe laws which govern the folar fyftem at least, and probably all the heavenly bodies.

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