number of velocities, one of the infinite number of directions, which would have made it approach much nearer to, or recede much further from, the fun?

The planets going round, all in the fame direction, and all nearly in the fame plane, afforded to Buffon a ground for afferting, that they had all been shivered from the fun by the same stroke of a comet, and by that stroke projected into their prefent orbits. Now, befide that this is to attribute to chance the fortunate concurrence of velocity and direction which we have been here noticing, the hypothefis, as I apprehend, is inconfiftent with the physical laws by which the heavenly motions are governed. If the planets were struck off from the furface of the fun, they would return to the furface of the fun again. Or, if, to get rid of this difficulty, we fuppofe, that the same violent blow, which fhattered the fun's furface, and separated large fragments from it, pushed also the fun himself out of his place; a question of no lefs difficulty prefents itself, namely, when once put into motion, what fhould stop him. The hypothefis is also contradicted by the vaft difference which fubfifts between the diameters of the planetary orbits.

The

The diftance of Saturn from the fun (to fay nothing of the Georgium fidus) is nearly fiveand-twenty times that of Mercury; a disparity, which it seems impoffible to reconcile with Buffon's scheme. Bodies ftarting from the fame place, with whatever difference of direction or velocity they fet off, could not have been found at thefe different diftances from the centre, still retaining their nearly circular orbits. They must have been carried to their proper distances, before they were projected*. To conclude: In aftronomy, the great thing

* "If we fuppofe the matter of the fyftem to be accumulated in the centre by its gravity, no mechanical principles, with the affistance of this power of gravity, could separate the vast mass into such parts as the fun and planets; and, after carrying them to their different distances, project them in their several directions, preserving still the equality of action and reaction, or the ftate of the centre of gravity of the fyftem. Such an exquisite structure of things could only arise from the contrivance and powerful influences of an intelligent, free, and most potent agent. The fame powers, therefore, which, at prefent, govern the material univerfe, and conduct its various motions, are very different from thofe, which were neceffary, to have produced it from nothing, or to have disposed it in the admirable form, in which it now proceeds."-Maclaurin's Account of Newton's Phil. p. 407,

ed. 3.

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is

is to raise the imagination to the subject, and that oftentimes in oppofition to the impreffion made upon the fenfes. An illufion, for example, must be got over, arifing from the diftance at which we view the heavenly bodies, viz. the apparent flowness of their motions. The moon fhall take fome hours in getting half a yard from a ftar which it touched. A motion fo deliberate, we may think easily guided. But what is the fact? The moon, in fact, is, all this while, driving through the heavens, at the rate of confiderably more than two thousand miles in an hour; which is more than double of that, with which a ball is fhot off from the mouth of a cannon. Yet is this prodigious rapidity as much undergovernment, as if the planet proceeded ever fo flowly, or were conducted in its courfe inch by inch. It is alfo difficult to bring the imagination to conceive (what yet, to judge tolerably of the matter, it is neceffary to conceive) how loose, if we may fo exprefs it, the heavenly bodies are. Enormous globes, held by nothing, confined by nothing, are turned into free and boundlefs fpace, each to feek its courfe by the virtue of an invifible principle; but a principle, one, common, and the fame, in all; and afcer

tainable.

tainable. To preserve such bodies from being loft, from running together in heaps, from hindering and distracting one another's motions, in a degree inconfiftent with any continuing order; h. e. to caufe them to form planetary fyftems, fyftems that, when formed, can be upheld, and, moft especially, fyftems accommodated to the organized and sensitive natures which the planets fustain, as we know to be the cafe, where alone we can know what the cafe is, upon our earth: all this requires an intelligent interpofition, because it can be demonstrated concerning it, that it requires an adjustment of force, diftance, direction, and velocity, out of the reach of chance to have produced; an adjustment, in its view to utility fimilar to that which we fee in ten thousand subjects of nature which are nearer to us, but in power, and in the extent of fpace through which that power is exerted, stupendous.

But many of the heavenly bodies, as the fun and fixed ftars, are ftationary. Their rest must be the effect of an abfence or of

an equilibrium of attractions. It proves alfo that a projectile impulfe was originally given to fome of the heavenly bodies, and not to others.

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others. But further; if attraction act at all distances, there can be only one quiefcent centre of gravity in the universe: and all bodies whatever must be approaching this centre, or revolving round it. According to the first of these fuppofitions, if the duration of the world had been long enough to allow of it, all its parts, all the great bodies of which it is composed, must have been gathered together in a heap round this point. No changes however which have been observed, afford us the smallest reafon for believing that either the one supposition or the other is true: and then it will follow, that attraction itself is controlled or fufpended by a fuperior agent; that there is a power above the highest of the powers of material nature; a will which reftrains and circumfcribes the operations of the moft extenfive.

CHAP.