Great and astonishing as this difference is, we ought not to be so wonder-struck at it as to attribute it to the miraculous interposition of heaven.

The causes of it are not remote, latent and mysterious; but near us, round about us, and open to the investigation of every inquiring mind.

It accords with the most liberal spirit of philosophy to suppose that not a stone can fall, or a plant rise, without the immediate agency of divine power.

But we know from experience that these operations of what we call nature have been conducted almost invariably according to fixed laws.

And since the world began, the causes of population and depopulation have probably been as constant as any of the laws of nature with which we are acquainted.
The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same that it may always be considered, in algebraic language, as a given quantity.