Every difficulty vanishes with the energy of nature, or at least is
as well accounted for as from an independent Deity. It is an usual
question to those philosophers, who maintain that the present existence
of things is the result of the force and energy of nature acting upon
herself, "why this force does not perpetually operate and produce new
appearances?" Besides that this question may be retorted upon the
supporters of a Deity, I am thoroughly persuaded, that this force is
constantly in action, and that every change which animals and
vegetables undergo, whether of dissolution or renovation, is a manifest
and undeniable proof of it. Man, and the other Beings which occupy this
terrestrial globe, are evidently suited to its present state, and an
alteration in their habitation, such as that of extreme or excessive
heat, would inevitably destroy them. This is so certain, that bones of
animals have been dug up which appertain to no species now existing,
and which must have perished from an alteration in the system of things
taking place too considerable for it to endure. Whenever the globe
shall come to that temperament fit for the life of that lost species,
whatever energy in nature produced it originally, if even it had a
beginning, will most probably be sufficient to produce it again. Is not
the reparation of vegitable life the spring equally wonderful now as
its first production? Yet this is a plain effect of the influence of
the sun, whose absence would occasion death by a perpetual winter.
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