It is not at first conceivable, how our past discoveries, and all those which may in future enrich the human mind, would ever free us from the necessity of placing a first cause at the termination of our reflections; for, the more we perceive of new links in the vast disposition of the universe, the more we extend the magnificence of the work, and the power of the Creator. A series of successful exertions may reveal, perhaps, the secret of some physical properties, superior in force to those we have experienced: but, even then, all the movements of nature would be subordinate to a few general laws; and when we should distinguish these laws, the result of our researches would demonstrate simply the existence of a greater unity in the system of the world; and this character of perfection would be impressed, if it was possible, still more on us; for, in a work, such as the universe, it is the simple and regular relations which announce, above all, the wisdom and power of the Disposer; because our admiration could never be excited by an assemblage of incoherent ideas, whose chain would every instant be broken. But, I know not by what habit or blindness it is, that when men have discovered a principle uniform in its action, and have given to that principle a denomination, they believe that their astonishment ought to cease: in fact, attraction and electricity are not so much now subjects of surprise, as a means to free us from the admiration due to the magnificent result of those singular properties; in short, we are habituated to consider, with indifference, every general effect, of which we acquire a conception, as if even this conception was not one of the most noble of the phœnomena of nature. Some will say, that men, by degrees, becoming familiarized with their own minds, despise all they can easily understand; their competitions are then the only origin of their vanity; for when they examine themselves individually, or when they judge of men in general, they have such a mean opinion of themselves, that they do not highly value their discoveries. We ought to place, amongst the number of ideas the most extensive and general, that of Buffon on the formation of the earth; but this idea, supposing it as just as it is beautiful, only explains to us one of the gradations of this superb work. I see the earth formed by an emanation of the sun; I see it animated and become fertile, when it has received, by slow degree, its temperature; and I see, beside, issue out of its lap all the beauties of nature; and that which surprises me still more, all the beings endowed with instinct or intelligence; but if the elements of these incomprehensible productions had been prepared or simply disposed in the fiery body which animates our system, I transfer to it my astonishment, and equally have to seek for the author of so many wonders.