ers then (2) and in a manner betake themselves to reft: and its abfence in Winter how doth it change the whole face of Nature, divest Vegetables of their gay attire, force Animals to places of fhelter and fafeguard, and give an aspect of melancholy and horrour to all things!

Taus it is manifeft how wifely and indulgently the great CREATOR hath provided for the good of our Planet, by fo critically adjufting its Pofition to, and its Distance from the Sun, to the state and temper of it and all things thereon.

And although the reft of the Planets encompaffing the Sun are fome of them nearer to, fome of them farther from it, yet there is no great question to be made but the fame wife Contriver hath made as good a provision for

(2) See my Phyfico Theol. B. 10. Not. 14.

them

them as for us, either by contempering their Density to their Distance from the Sun, or by fome other the wifest and best course; as we have very just reason to suspect from that grand and folemn apparatus I spake of, of Secondary Planets. Which leads me to confider the Provifions made for the supply of the Sun's abfence, and greater diftance.

06.

CHAP. III,

The Neceffity of Light, and the Provifion for it by the Atmosphere.

BER

EFORE I come to the other Planets, it will be convenient to confider how the Sun's absence is supplied here upon the Earth, as also probably how it is fupplied in her concomitant the Moon.

AND

AND firft as to the Earth. Of fuch abfolute neceffity is Light (not to mention Heat) that our World could not well be in the leaft utterly without it, because during utter, absolute Darkness (befides the great inconveniences it might bring to Vegetables, Minerals, and every other fuch like part of the Creation, befides this I fay) it would certainly put Animals under an utter incapacity of performing their moft neceffary bufinefs, and acting in that office which the divine Providence hath appointed them, although of greatest use to themselves or the reft of the World. Men, for instance, whose business and occafions oftentimes neceffitate them to borrow a part of the Night; and other Animals, whofe Safety or Temper, or Conftitution of Parts (as of their Eye, or some other parts) confine them to their Dens, and places of retirement and reft by Day,

and

and are therefore in course compelled to feek their food, and wander about on their most neceffary occafions of life by Night, all thefe, I fay, would at once be cut off from one of the grand benefits of life, from acting that part they bear in the Creation, during fuch time as they fhould be put into abfolute Darkness. But to prevent this, the infinitely wife Contriver of the World hath made divers admirable provifions both in our own, and the other Planets too. One provifion which he hath made in our own Globe, and I may add that of the Moon alfo, is by encompaffing both with an Atmosphere (1),

(1) Mr. Huygens in his Cofmotheor. P. IIS. concludes the Moon to have no Air or Atmofphere because we fee its Limb fo clearly and accurately defined, and because he thought there are no Seas or Rivers in the Moon. But he was miftaken both in his Conclufion and part of his Premises. For in the Solar Eclipse

which, among other grand ufes, minifters very much to the propagation of Light, partly by reflecting the Rays of Light to our Eye, and partly refracting them fo as to make them visible and useful to us, when otherwife they would not appear. Hence that Whiteness (2) and Brightness obferveable in the air by day; and hence the Twy-light, when the Sun is hidden under the Horizon.

..

The

like to which is obferveable in the Moon alfo, in that fecondary, rufty light which is feen in her Eclipfes, and before and after her Quarters.

May 1. 1706. which in Switzerland was Total, they could manifeftly perceive the Moon's Atmosphere, as may be feen in the Accounts given in Philof. Tranf. No. 306.

(2) See Phyfico-Theol. B. 1. Ch. 1. Note 12.