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My opinion of Aftronomy has always been,

that it is not the beft medium through which to prove the agency of an intelligent Creator; but that, this being proved, it fhews, beyond all other fciences, the magnificence of his operations. The mind which is once convinced, it raises to fublimer views of the Deity, than any other fubject affords; but is not fo well adapted, as fome other fubjects are, to the purpose of argu nent. We are deftitute of the means of examining the conftitution of the heavenly bodies. The very fimplicity of their appearance is against them. We fee nothing, but bright points, luminous circles, or the phases of spheres reflecting the light which

*For the articles in this chapter marked with an afterisk, I am indebted to fome obliging communications, received (through the hands of the Lord Bishop of Elphin) from the Rev. J. Brinkley, M. A. Andrew's Profeffor of Aftronomy in the University of Dublin.

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falls upon them. Now we deduce design from relation, aptitude, and correspondence of parts. Some degree therefore of complexity is neceffary to render a subject fit for this fpecies of arguBut the heavenly bodies do not, except perhaps in the inftance of Saturn's ring, prefent themselves to our obfervation as compounded of parts at all. This, which may be a perfection in them, is a disadvantage to us, as enquirers after their nature. They do not come within our mechanics.

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And what we fay of their forms, is true of their motions. Their motions are carried on without sensible intermediate apparatus: whereby we are cut off from one principal ground of argumentation and analogy. We have nothing wherewith to compare them; no invention, no discovery, no operation or refource of art, which, in this refpect, resembles them. Even those things which are made to imitate and reprefent them, fuch as orreries, planetaria, cœleftial globes, &c. bear no affinity to them, in the cause and principle by which their mo tions are actuated. I can affign for this dif ference a reason of utility, viz. a reason why, though the action of terreftrial bodies upon each other be, in almoft all cases, through

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the intervention of folid or fluid fubftances, yet central attraction does not operate in this manner. It was neceffary that the intervals between the planetary orbs fhould be devoid of any inert matter either fluid or folid, because such an intervening fubftance would, by its refiftance, deftroy thofe very motions, which attraction is employed to preserve. This may be a final cause of the difference; but ftill the difference deftroys the analogy,

Our ignorance, moreover, of the fenfitive natures, by which other planets are inhabited, neceffarily keeps from us the knowledge of numberlefs utilities, relations, and subfervien-❤ cies, which we perceive upon our own globe.

After all; the real subject of admiration is, that we understand fo much of aftronomy as we do. That an animal confined to the furface of one of the planets; bearing a lefs proportion to it, than the fmalleft microscopic infect does to the plant it lives upon; that this little, bufy, inquifitive creature, by the use of fenfes which were given to it for its domeftic neceffities, and by means of the affistance of thofe fenfes which it has had the art to pro cure, fhould have been enabled to obferve the whole fyftem of worlds to which itown bẹlongs;

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longs; the changes of place of the immenfe globes which compofe it; and with fuch accuracy, as to mark out, beforehand, the fituation in the heavens in which they will be found at any future point of time; and that thefe bodies, after failing through regions of void and tracklefs fpace, should arrive at the place where they were expected, not within a minute, but within a few feconds of a minute, of the time prefixed and predicted: all this is wonderful, whether we refer our admiration to the conftancy of the heavenly motions themfelves, or to the perfpicacity and precifion with which they have been noticed by mankind. Nor is this the whole, nor indeed the chief part, of what aftronomy teaches. By bringing reafon to bear upon obfervation, (the acuteft reafoning upon the exactest observation,) the aftronomer has been able, out of the confusion (for such it is) under which the motions of the heavenly bodies present themfelves to the eye of a mere gazer upon the skies, to elicit their order and their real paths..

Our knowledge therefore of aftronomy is admirable though imperfect: and, amidst the confeffed defiderata and defideranda, which. impede our investigation of the wisdom of the

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Deity, in these the grandeft of his works, there are to be found, in the phænomena, afcertained circumftances and laws, fufficient to indicate an intellectual agency in three of its principal operations, viz. in chufing, in deter mining, in regulating; in chufing, out of a boundless variety of fuppofitions which were equally poffible, that which is beneficial; in determining, what, left to itself, had a thoufand chances against conveniency, for one in its favour; in regulating fubjects, as to quan tity and degree, which, by their nature, were unlimited with refpect to either. I will be our business to offer, under each of these heads, a few inftances, fuch as beft admit of a popular explication.

1. Amongst proofs of choice, one is, fixing the fource of light and heat in the centre of the fyftem. The fun is ignited and luminous; the planets, which move round him, cold and dark. There feems to be no, antecedent neceffity for this order. The fun might have. been an opaque mafs: fome one, or two, or more, or any, or all, of the planets, globes of fire. There is nothing in the nature of the heavenly bodies, which requires that those which are ftationary fhould be on fire, that

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