When, for example, we behold the pyramids of Egypt, our mind is agitated
with a crowd of ideas that highly entertains the person who understands
the subject; but the carrying a heavy stone up to the top of a hill or
mountain would give that person little pleasure or concern. We wonder at
the whole operation of the pyramid, but not at any one particular part.
The raising up of a continent of land from the bottom of the sea, is an
idea that is too great to be conceived easily in all the parts of its
operations, many of which are perhaps unknown to us; and, without being
properly understood, so great an idea may appear like a thing that is
imaginary. In like manner, the co-relative, or corresponding operation,
the destruction of the land, is an idea that does not easily enter into
the mind of man in its totality, although he is daily witness to part of
the operation. We never see a river in a flood, but we must acknowledge
the carrying away of part of our land, to be sunk at the bottom of the
sea; we never see a storm upon the coast, but we are informed of a
hostile attack of the sea upon our country; attacks which must, in time,
wear away the bulwarks of our soil, and sap the foundations of our
dwellings.
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