terror among our forefathers, But when history should he silent on these
stupendous revolutions, would not our own reflection on what passes
under our eyes be sufficient to convince us, that all parts of our globe
have been, and following the course of things, will necessarily be again
violently agitated, overturned, changed, overflowed, in a state of
conflagration? Vast continents have been inundated, seas breaking their
limits have usurped the dominion of the earth; at length retiring, these
waters have left striking, proofs of their presence, by the marine
vestiges of shells, skeletons of sea fish, &c. which the attentive
observer meets with at every step, in the bowels of those fertile
countries we now inhabit--subterraneous fires have opened to themselves
the most frightful volcanoes, whose craters frequently issue destruction
on every side. In short, the elements unloosed, have at various times,
disputed among themselves the empire of our globe; this exhibits
evidence of the fact, by those vast heaps of wreck, those stupendous
ruins spread over its surface. What, then, must have been the fears of
mankind, who in those countries believed he beheld the entire of nature
armed against his peace, menacing with destruction his very abode? What
must have been the inquietude of a people taken thus unprovided, who
fancied they saw nature cruelly labouring to their annihilation? Who
beheld a world ready to be dashed into atoms; who witnessed the earth
suddenly rent asunder; whose yawning chasm was the grave of large
cities, whole provinces, entire nations? What ideas must mortals, thus
overwhelmed with terror, form to themselves of the irresistible cause
that could produce such extended effects? Without doubt they did not
attribute these wide spreading calamities to nature; neither did they
conceive they were mere physical causes; they could not suspect she was
the author, the accomplice of the confusion she herself experienced;
they did not see that these tremendous revolutions, these overpowering
disorders, were the necessary result of her immutable laws; that they