The firma "breathing was no more. "ment was melted down, and rained "its fulphur o'er the proftrate globe," &c. It does not blaft us, like lightning, in the current flash, but as Young fays of friendship, warms us by reverberation. The Sun emanates Light only, in the direct line, but owes its Heat to reflection, folely. We feel it, therefore, more intenfely, in a valley, than on a hill. It appears to my apprehenfion to be a much more philofophic hypo-" thefis of the matter, that Providence should have originally impreffed a fpecific energy on this great Luminary, this Second Soul of Nature, to dart its elaftic and rebounding rays upon all furrounding and oppofing bodies, than to fuppofe it reduced to make use of second means, like a cookmaid, to keep this hallowed flame alive. Why are the Alps and Pyrenées crowned with eternal frofts, while the fhepherds, with their flocks, are sheltering their baked heads from the heat of the fun, at the foot of them? Why do the upper regions of the air fhower down their hail and fnow to be ftrewed and melted here below? Why fhall a lens of Ice receive the rays above, fo coldly, and transmit them fo intenfely hot, beneath? Why Why is it warmer, in fummer, though the Sun is farther off, than in winter, when 'tis fo much nearer to us? Because of the difference of our fituation, with regard to it, only In the first case, the rays are vertical, in the other lateral; and perpendicular rebounds are ftronger, than oblique ones. This would not be the cafe, in common fire; the diftance, not the pofition, makes all the difference there. way We judge of fire above, from what we feel below. We reafon the fame in métaphyfics. We make God angry and pleased, glad and forry, partial and revengeful, because we are fo ourfelves. We are faid to be made after his image; and in return, we form him after our own.-Fontenelle fays, very juftly, that men are envious of every nature, except their own. "They impute their paffions to the Deity, and deny their reafon to the "brutes." CHAP. CHAP. LVII. THE DEITY. THE clofe of my laft chapter led me into fome reflections on the fubject of this title, and I indulged myself in them, for fome time, with a defign of making them the substance of this chapter; but I thought it would please my reader more, to give him something much better written, by the translation of a little philofophic piece, on the fame topic, which Monfieur Voltaire has inferted in his Questions fur l'Encyclopedie, from an anonimous author. ༄ * Vol. V. Article Eternité. |