Thus we are led to inquire into the final cause of things, while we investigate an operation of such magnitude and importance, as is that of forming land of sea, and sea of land, of apparently reversing nature, and of destroying that which is so admirably adapted to its purpose. Was it the work of accident, or effect of an occasional transaction, that by which the sea had covered our land? Or, Was it the intention of that Mind which formed the matter of this globe, which endued that matter with its active and its passive powers, and which placed it with so much wisdom among a numberless collection of bodies, all moving in a system? If we admit the first, the consequence of such a supposition would be to attribute to chance the constitution of this world, in which the systems of life and sense, of reason and intellect, are necessarily maintained. If again we shall admit, that there is intention in the cause by which the present earth had been removed from the bottom of the sea, we may then inquire into the nature of that system in which a habitable earth, possessed of beauty, arranged in order, and preserved with economy, had been formed by the mixture and combination of the different elements, and made to rise out of the wreck of a former world. In examining the structure of our earth, we find it no less evidently formed of loose and incoherent materials, than that those materials had been collected from different parts, and gathered together at the bottom of the sea. Consequently, if this continent of land, first collected in the sea, and then raised above its surface, is to remain a habitable earth, and to resist the moving waters of the globe, certain degrees of solidity or consolidation must be given to that collection of loose materials; and certain degrees of hardness must be given to bodies which were soft or incoherent, and consequently so extremely perishable in the situation where they now are placed. But, at the same time that this earth must have solidity and hardness to resist the sudden changes which its moving fluids would occasion, it must be made subject to decay and, waste upon the surface exposed to the atmosphere; for, such an earth as were made incapable of change, or not subject to decay, could not afford that fertile soil which is required in the system of this world, a soil on which depends the growth of plants and life of animals,--the end of its intention. Now, we find this earth endued precisely with that degree of hardness and consolidation, as qualifies it at the same time to be a fruitful earth, and to maintain its station with all the permanency compatible with the nature of things, which are not formed to remain unchangeable.