whereas the rays that produce in us the idea of green, fall upon the eye
in such a due proportion, that they give the animal spirits their proper
play, and by keeping up the struggle in a just balance, excite a very
agreeable and pleasing sensation. Let the cause be what it will, the
effect is certain; for which reason, the poets ascribe to this
particular colour the epithet of _cheerful_.

8. To consider further this double end in the works of nature; and how
they are, at the same time, both useful and entertaining, we find that
the most important parts in the vegetable world are those which are the
most beautiful. These are the seeds by which the several races of plants
are propagated and continued, and which are always lodged in flowers or
blossoms. Nature seems to hide her principal design, and to be
industrious in making the earth gay and delightful, while she is
carrying on her great work, and intent upon her own preservation. The
husbandman, after the same manner, is employed in laying out the whole
country into a kind of garden or landscape, and making every thing smile
about him, whilst, in reality, he thinks of nothing but of the harvest
and increase which is to arise from it.

9. We may further observe how Providence has taken care to keep up this
cheerfulness in the mind of man, by having formed it after such a
manner, as to make it capable of conceiving delight from several objects
which seem to have very little use in them; as from the wildness of
rocks and deserts, and the like grotesque parts of nature. Those who are
versed in philosophy may still carry this consideration higher by
observing, that, if matter had appeared to us endowed only with those
real qualities which it actually possesses, it would have made but a
very joyless and uncomfortable figure; and why has Providence given it a
power of producing in us such imaginary qualities, as tastes and
colours, sounds and smells, heat and cold, but that man, while he is
conversant in the lowest stations of nature, might have his mind cheered
and delighted with agreeable sensations? In short, the whole universe is
a kind of theatre filled with objects that either raise in us pleasure,
amusement, or admiration.

10. The reader's own thoughts may suggest to him the vicissitude of day
and night, the change of seasons, with all that variety of scenes which
diversify the face of nature, and fill the mind with a perpetual
succession of beautiful and pleasin