6. 45, 46:—­

To the red and baleful sun
That faintly twinkles there.

The north polar star, to which the axis of the earth, in its present state of obliquity, points.  It is exceedingly probable, from many considerations, that this obliquity will gradually diminish, until the equator coincides with the ecliptic:  the nights and days will then become equal on the earth throughout the year, and probably the seasons also.  There is no great extravagance in presuming that the progress of the perpendicularity of the poles may be as rapid as the progress of intellect; or that there should be a perfect identity between the moral and physical improvement of the human species.  It is certain that wisdom is not compatible with disease, and that, in the present state of the climates of the earth, health, in the true and comprehensive sense of the word, is out of the reach of civilized man.  Astronomy teaches us that the earth is now in its progress, and that the poles are every year becoming more and more perpendicular to the ecliptic.  The strong evidence afforded by the history of mythology, and geological researches, that some event of this nature has taken place already, affords a strong presumption that this progress is not merely an oscillation, as has been surmised by some late astronomers. (Laplace, “Systeme du Monde".)

Bones of animals peculiar to the torrid zone have been found in the north of Siberia, and on the banks of the river Ohio.  Plants have been found in the fossil state in the interior of Germany, which demand the present climate of Hindostan for their production. (Cabanis, “Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l’Homme”, volume 2 page 406.) The researches of M. Bailly establish the existence of a people who inhabited a tract in Tartary 49 degrees north latitude, of greater antiquity than either the Indians, the Chinese, or the Chaldeans, from whom these nations derived their sciences and theology. (Bailly, “Lettres sur les Sciences, a Voltaire".) We find, from the testimony of ancient writers, that Britain, Germany, and France were much colder than at present, and that their great rivers were annually frozen over.  Astronomy teaches us also that since this period the obliquity of the earth’s position has been considerably diminished.

6. 171-173:—­

No atom of this turbulence fulfils
A vague and unnecessitated task,
Or acts but as it must and ought to act.

’Deux examples serviront a nous rendre plus sensible le principe qui vient d’etre pose; nous emprunterons l’un du physique at l’autre du moral.  Dans un tourbillon de poussiere qu’eleve un vent impetueux, quelque confus qu’il paraisse a nos yeux; dans la plus affreuse tempete excitee par des vents opposes qui soulevent les flots,—­il n’y a pas une seule molecule de poussiere ou d’eau qui soit placee au HASARD, qui n’ait sa cause suffisante pour occuper le lieu ou elle se trouve, et qui n’agisse rigoureusement de la maniere dont ella doit agir.  Un geometre qui connaitrait exactement les differentes forces qui agissent dans ces deux cas, at las proprietes des molecules qui sent mues, demontrerait que d’apres des causes donnees, chaque molecule agit precisement comme ella doit agir, et ne peut agir autrement qu’elle ne fait.