for the purpose of this earth as a habitable world, than are the various
substances of which that complicated body is composed. Soft and hard
parts variously combine to form a medium consistence, adapted to the use
of plants and animals; wet and dry are properly mixed for nutrition,
or the support of those growing bodies; and hot and cold produce a
temperature or climate no less required than a soil: Insomuch, that
there is not any particular, respecting either the qualities of the
materials, or the construction of the machine, more obvious to
our perception, than are the presence and efficacy of design and
intelligence in the power that conducts the work.

In taking this view of things, where ends and means are made the object
of attention, we may hope to find a principle upon which the comparative
importance of parts in the system of nature may be estimated, and also
a rule for selecting the object of our inquiries. Under this direction,
science may find a fit subject of investigation in every particular,
whether of _form_, _quality_, or _active power_, that presents itself in
this system of motion and of life; and which, without a proper
attention to this character of the system, might appear anomalous and
incomprehensible.

It is not only by seeing those general operations of the globe which
depend upon its peculiar construction as a machine, but also by
perceiving how far the particulars, in the construction of that machine,
depend upon the general operations of the globe, that we are enabled to
understand the constitution of this earth as a thing formed by design.
We shall thus also be led to acknowledge an order, not unworthy of
Divine wisdom, in a subject which, in another view, has appeared as the
work of chance, or as absolute disorder and confusion.