II.—­EARTH, THE MOTHER OF ALL LIVING

After these comparisons, about which I only desire the reader to consult himself, without any argumentation, I think it is high time to enter into a detail of nature.  I do not pretend to penetrate through the whole.  Who is able to do it?  Neither do I pretend to enter into any physical discussion.  Such way of reasoning requires a certain deep knowledge, which abundance of men of wit and sense never acquire; and therefore I will offer nothing to them but the simple prospect of the face of nature.  I will entertain them with nothing but what everybody knows, which requires only a little calm and serious attention.

Let us, in the first place, stop at the great object that first strikes our sight—­I mean the general structure of the universe.  Let us cast our eyes on this earth that bears us.

Who is it that hung and poised this motionless globe of the earth?  Who laid its foundation?  Nothing seems more vile and contemptible, for the meanest wretches tread it under foot; but yet it is in order to possess it that we part with the greatest treasures.  If it were harder than it is, men could not open its bosom to cultivate it; and if it were less hard it could not bear them, and they would sink everywhere as they do in sand, or in a bog.  It is from the inexhaustible bosom of the earth we draw what is most precious.  That shapeless, vile, and rude mass assumes the most various forms, and yields alone, by turns, all the goods we can desire.  That dirty soil transforms itself into a thousand fine objects that charm the eye.  In the compass of one year it turns into branches, twigs, buds, leaves, blossoms, fruits, and seeds, in order, by those various shapes, to multiply its liberalities to mankind.

Nothing exhausts the earth; the more we tear her bowels the more she is liberal.  After so many ages, during which she has produced everything, she is not yet worn out.  She feels no decay from old age, and her entrails still contain the same treasures.  A thousand generations have passed away, and returned into her bosom.

Everything grows old, she alone excepted; for she grows young again every year in the spring.  She is never wanting to men; but foolish men are wanting to themselves in neglecting to cultivate her.  It is through their laziness and extravagance they suffer brambles and briars to grow instead of grapes and corn.  They contend for a good they let perish.  The conquerors leave uncultivated the ground for the possession of which they have sacrificed the lives of so many thousand men, and have spent their own in hurry and trouble.  Men have before them vast tracts of land uninhabited and uncultivated, and they turn mankind topsy-turvy for one nook of that neglected ground in dispute.  The earth, if well cultivated, would feed a hundred times more men than she does now.  Even the unevenness of ground, which at first seems to be a defect, turns either into ornament or profit.