had his acquaintance with his own species to make, and his faculties to
acquire, it is a time of which we have no record, and in relation to which
our opinions can serve no purpose, and are supported by no evidence.

We are often tempted into these boundless regions of ignorance or
conjecture, by a fancy which delights in creating rather than in merely
retaining the forms which are presented before it: we are the dupes of a
subtilty, which promises to supply every defect of our knowledge, and, by
filling up a few blanks in the story of nature, pretends to conduct our
apprehension nearer to the source of existence. On the credit of a few
observations, we are apt to presume, that the secret may soon be laid open,
and that what is termed _wisdom_ in nature, may be referred to the
operation of physical powers. We forget that physical powers employed in
succession or together, and combined to a salutary purpose, constitute
those very proofs of design from which we infer the existence of God; and
that this truth being once admitted, we are no longer to search for the
source of existence; we can only collect the laws which the Author of
nature has established; and in our latest as well as our earliest
discoveries, only perceive a mode of creation or providence before unknown.

We speak of art as distinguished from nature; but art itself is natural to
man. He is in some measure the artificer of his own frame, as well as of
his fortune, and is destined, from the first age of his being, to invent
and contrive. He applies the same talents to a variety of purposes, and
acts nearly the same part in very different scenes. He would be always
improving on his subject, and he carries this intention wherever he moves,
through the streets of the populous city, or the wilds of the forest. While
he appears equally fitted to every condition, he is upon this account
unable to settle in any. At once obstinate and fickle, he complains of
innovations, and is never sated with novelty. He is perpetually busied in