reft of his works; and that though it is difficult to add much to the great fame he fo juftly acquired by his other writings, these will be read with fatisfaction and pleasure.

JOSEPH BLACK.

JAMES HUTTON.

THE

PRINCIPLES

WHICH LEAD AND DIRECT.

PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRIES;

ILLUSTRATED BY THE

HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY.

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THE

HISTORY

OF

ASTRONOMY.

W

ONDER, furprise, and admiration, are words which, though often confounded, denote, in our language, fentiments that are indeed allied, but that are in fome refpects different alfo, and diftinct from one another. What is new and fingular, excites that fentiment which, in strict propriety, is called Wonder; what is unexpected, Surprise; and what is great or beautiful, Admiration.

We wonder at all extraordinary and uncom mon objects, at all the rarer phænomena of nature, at meteors, comets, eclipfes, at fingular plants and animals, and at every thing, in fhort, with which we have before been either little or not at all acquainted; and we ftill wonder, though forewarned of what we are to fee.

We are surprised at thofe things which we have feen often, but which we leaft of all expected

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expected to meet with in the place where we find them; we are furprifed at the fudden appearance of a friend, whom we have feen a thousand times, but whom we did not imagine we were to fee then.

We admire the beauty of a plain or the greatness of a mountain, though we have feen both often before, and though nothing appears to us in either, but what we had expected with certainty to fee.

Whether this criticifm upon the precife meaning of these words be juft, is of little importance. I imagine it is juft, though I acknowledge, that the beft writers in our language have not always made use of them according to it. Milton, upon the appearance of Death to Satan, fays, that

The Fiend what this might be admir'd;

Admir'd, not fear'd.

But if this criticism be juft, the proper expreffion fhould have been wonder' d.-Dryden, upon the discovery of Iphigenia fleeping, fays, that

The fool of nature ftood with ftupid eyes

And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.

But what Cimon must have felt upon this occafion could not fo much be Surprise, as Wonder and Admiration. All that I contend for is, that the fentiments excited by what is new, by what is unexpected, and by what is

great