A knowledge of geology and astronomy also makes a man humble and reverent. The fact that this globe must have existed myriads of years; and is always moving at the immense velocity of more than 62,000 {145} miles an hour in its orbit, is sufficient to convince any unprejudiced person of his own transient physical existence and his comparative physical feebleness and insignificance. Hitherto, man has largely been accustomed, through the influence of uncorrected impressions and other causes, to view all nature as having been expressly provided for him, but science informs us that whilst this Earth is suitable for his abode, and Nature ministers to his necessities and pleasures, it is only on condition that he first obeys the great laws of matter and energy, and adapts himself to their requirements. The operation of those laws often ruthlessly destroys thousands of men by pestilence, famine, drought, and other great calamities, and man can do nothing which is incompatible with them without suffering a penalty. Science shews that man is but one out of at least 320,000 different species of animals; it also discloses the fact that the entire human population of this globe constitute only about one 50,575,785 millionth part of the Earth, and proves to us that the Earth itself is but a speck in the Universe, one out of at least 75 millions of worlds; and that not only is it merely a planet revolving round the Sun, but that the Sun is only one of a multitude of Suns, and is itself, with all its planets, revolving round a still more distant centre in space.