This earth, which is now dry land, was under water, and was formed in the sea.  Here is a matter of fact, and not of theory, so far as it can be made as evident as any thing of which we have not seen the immediate act or execution.  But the propriety of this matter of fact is only to be perceived in making the following acknowledgment, That the origin of this earth is necessarily placed in the bottom of the sea.  In supposing any other origin to this habitable earth, we would see the impropriety of having it covered with water, or drowned in the sea.  But, being formed originally at the bottom of the sea, if we can explain the phenomena of this earth by natural causes, we will acknowledge the wisdom of those means, by which the earth, thus formed at the bottom of the sea, had been perfected in its nature, and made to fulfil the purpose of its intention, by being placed in the atmosphere.

If the habitable earth does not take its origin in the waters of the sea, the washing away of the matter of this earth into the sea would put a period to the existence of that system which forms the admirable constitution of this living world.  But, if the origin of this earth is founded in the sea, the matter which is washed from our land is only proceeding in the order of the system; and thus no change would be made in the general system of this world, although this particular earth, which we possess at present, should in the course of nature disappear.

It has already been our business to show that the land is actually wasted universally, and carried away into the sea.  Now, What is the final cause of this event?—­Is it in order to destroy the system of this living world, that the operations of nature are thus disposed upon the surface of this earth?  Or, Is it to perpetuate the progress of that system, which, in other respects, appears to be contrived with so much wisdom?  Here are questions which a Theory of the Earth must solve; and here indeed, must be found the most material part by far of any Theory of the Earth.  For, as we are more immediately concerned with the operations of the surface, it is the revolutions of that surface which forms, for us, the most interesting subject of inquiry.

Thus we are led to inquire into the final cause of things, while we investigate an operation of such magnitude and importance, as is that of forming land of sea, and sea of land, of apparently reversing nature, and of destroying that which is so admirably adapted to its purpose.  Was it the work of accident, or effect of an occasional transaction, that by which the sea had covered our land?  Or, Was it the intention of that Mind which formed the matter of this globe, which endued that matter with its active and its passive powers, and which placed it with so much wisdom among a numberless collection of bodies, all moving in a system?  If we admit the first, the consequence of such a supposition would be to attribute to chance the constitution of this world, in which the systems