Farther, in examining the internal construction
of this stratified and sea-born mass, we find that it had been composed
of the moved materials of a former earth; and, from the most accurate
and extensive examination of those materials, which in many places are
indeed much disguised, we are led necessarily to conclude, that there
had been a world existing, and containing an animal, a vegetable, and a
mineral system. But, in thus tracing back the natural operations which
have succeeded each other, and mark to us the course of time past, we
come to a period in which we cannot see any farther. This, however,
is not the beginning of those operations which proceed in time and
according to the wise economy of this world; nor is it the establishing
of that, which, in the course of time, had no beginning; it is only the
limit of our retrospective view of those operations which have come to
pass in time, and have been conducted by supreme intelligence.
My principal anxiety was to show how the constitution of this world
had been wisely contrived; and this I endeavoured to do, not from
supposition or conjecture, but from its answering so effectually the end
of its intention, viz.
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