compared with that of the body at the centre; the orbits not much inclined to one another; and their eccentricity little. In such a system, the grand points are secure. The mean distances and periodic times, upon which depend our tempera

these limits bear so small a proportion to the range of possibilities upon which chance might equally have cast it, is not, with any appearance of reason, to be accounted for by any other cause than a regulation proceeding from a designing mind. But our next proposition carries the matter some-ture, and the regularity of our year, are constant. what farther. We say, in the third place, that, out of the different laws which lie within the limits of admissible laws, the best is made choice of; that there are advantages in this particular law which cannot be demonstrated to belong to any other law; and, concerning some of which, it can be demonstrated that they do not belong to any other.

(*) 1. Whilst this law prevails between each particle of matter, the united attraction of a sphere, composed of that matter, observes the same law. This property of the law is necessary, to render it applicable to a system composed of spheres, but it is a property which belongs to no other law of attraction that is admissible. The law of variation of the united attraction is in no other case the same as the law of attraction of each particle, one case excepted, and that is of the attraction varying directly as the distance; the inconveniency of which law, in other respects, we have already noticed.

The eccentricities, it is true, will still vary; but so slowly, and to so small an extent, as to produce no inconveniency from fluctuation of temperature and season. The same as to the obliquity of the planes of the orbits. For instance, the inclination of the ecliptic to the equator will never change above two degrees (out of ninety,) and that will require many thousand years in performing.

It has been rightly also remarked, that, if the great planets, Jupiter and Saturn, had moved in lower spheres, their influences would have had much more effect as to disturbing the planetary motions, than they now have. While they revolve at so great distances from the rest, they act almost equally on the sun and on the inferior planets; which has nearly the same consequences as not acting at all upon either.

to the scheme may be drawn from the consideration of these same perturbing forces. The system retaining in other respects its present constitution, though the planets had been at first sent round in exact circular orbits, they could not have kept them; and if the law of attraction had not been what it is, or, at least, if the prevailing law had transgressed the limits above assigned, every evagation would have been fatal: the planet once drawn, as drawn it necessarily must have been, out of its course, would have wandered in endless error.

(*) V. What we have seen in the law of the centripetal force, viz. a choice guided by views of utility, and a choice of one law out of thousands which might equally have taken place, we see no less in the figures of the planetary orbits. It was not enough to fix the law of the centripetal force, though by the wisest choice; for, even under that law, it was still competent to the planets to have moved in paths possessing so great a degree of eccentricity, as, in the course of every revolution, to be brought very near to the sun, and carried away to immense distances from him. The

If it be said that the planets might have been sent round the sun in exact circles, in which case, no change of distance from the centre taking place, the law of variation of the attracting power We may follow this regulation somewhat far- would have never come in question, one law ther, and still more strikingly perceive that it pro-would have served as well as another; an answer ceeded from a designing mind. A law both admissible and convenient was requisite. In what way is the law of the attracting globes obtained? Astronomical observations and terrestrial experiments show that the attraction of the globes of the system is made up of the attraction of their parts; the attraction of each globe being compounded of the attractions of its parts. Now the admissible and convenient law which exists, could not be obtained in a system of bodies gravitating by the united gravitation of their parts, unless each particle of matter were attracted by a force varying by one particular law, viz. varying inversely as the square of the distance: for, if the action of the particles be according to any other law whatever, the admissible and convenient law, which is adopted, could not be obtained. Here then are clearly shown regulation and design. A law both admissible and convenient was to be obtained: the mode chosen for obtaining that law was by making each particle of matter act. After this choice was made, then farther attention was to be given to each particle of matter, and one, and one only, particular law of action to be assigned to it. No other law would have answered the pur-comets actually move in orbits of this sort: and, pose intended. had the planets done so, instead of going round (*) 2. All systems must be liable to perturba-in orbits nearly circular, the change from one extions. And, therefore, to guard against these per-tremity of temperature to another must, in ours at turbations, or rather to guard against their running least, have destroyed every animal and plant upon to destructive lengths, is perhaps the strongest evidence of care and foresight that can be given. Now, we are able to demonstrate of our law of attraction, what can be demonstrated of no other, and what qualifies the dangers which arise from cross but unavoidable influences; that the action of the parts of our system upon one another will not cause permanently increasing irregularities, but merely periodical or vibratory ones; that is, they will come to a limit, and then go back again. This we can demonstrate only of a system, in which the following properties concur, viz. that the force shall be inversely as the square of the distance; the masses of the revolving bodies small,

its surface. Now, the distance from the centre at which a planet sets off, and the absolute force of attraction at that distance, being fixed, the figure of its orbit, its being a circle, or nearer to, or farther off from a circle, viz. a rounder or a longer oval, depends upon two things, the velocity with, and the direction in which, the planet is projected. And these, in order to produce a right result, must be both brought within certain narrow limits. One, and only one, velocity, united with one, and only one, direction, will produce a perfect circle. And the velocity must be near to this velocity, and the direction also near to this direction, to produce orbits, such as the planetary

To conclude: in astronomy, the great thing is to raise the imagination to the subject, and that oftentimes in opposition to the impression made upon the senses. An illusion, for example, must be gotten over, arising from the distance at which we view the heavenly bodies, viz. the apparent slowness of their motions. The moon shall take some hours in getting half a yard from a star

orbits are, nearly circular; that is, ellipses with i have been carried to their proper distances, before small eccentricities. The velocity and the direc- they were projected.* tion must both be right. If the velocity be wrong, no direction will cure the error; if the direction be in any considerable degree oblique, no velocity will produce the orbit required. Take for example the attraction of gravity at the surface of the earth. The force of that attraction being what it is, out of all the degrees of velocity, swift and slow, with which a ball might be shot off, none would answer the purpose of which we are speak-which it touched. A motion so deliberate, we may ing, but what was nearly that of five miles in a second. If it were less than that, the body would not get round at all, but would come to the ground; if it were in any considerable degree more than that, the body would take one of those eccentric courses, these long ellipses, of which we have noticed the inconveniency. If the velocity reached the rate of seven miles in a second, or went beyond that, the ball would fly off from the earth, and never be heard of more. In like manner with respect to the direction; out of the innumerable angles in which the ball might be sent off (I mean angles formed with a line drawn to the centre,) none would serve but what was nearly a right one: out of the various directions in which the cannon might be pointed, upwards and downwards, every one would fail, but what was exactly or nearly horizontal. The same thing holds true of the planets of our own amongst the rest. We are entitled therefore to ask, and to urge the question, Why did the projectile velocity and projectile direction of the earth happen to be nearly those which would retain it in a circular form? Why not one of the infinite number of velocities, one of the infinite number of directions, which would have made it approach much nearer to, or recede much farther from, the sun?

think easily guided. But what is the fact? The moon, in fact, is, all this while, driving through the heavens, at the rate of considerably more than two thousand miles in an hour; which is more than double of that with which a ball is shot off from the mouth of a cannon. Yet is this prodigious rapidity as much under government, as if the planet proceeded ever so slowly, or were conducted in its course inch by inch. It is also difficult to bring the imagination to conceive (what yet, to judge tolerably of the matter, it is necessary to conceive) how loose, if we may so express it, the heavenly bodies are. Enormous globes, held by nothing, confined by nothing, are turned into free and boundless space, each to seek its course by the virtue of an invisible principle; but a principle, one, common, and the same in all; and ascertainable. To preserve such bodies from being lost, from running together in heaps, from hindering and distracting one another's motions in a degree inconsistent with any continuing order; h. e. to cause them to form planetary systems, systems that, when formed, can be upheld, and most especially, systems accommodated to the organized and sensitive natures which the planets sustain, as we know to be the case, where alone we can know what the case is, upon our

tion, because it can be demonstrated concerning it, that it requires an adjustment of force, distance, direction, and velocity, out of the reach of chance to have produced; an adjustment, in its view to utility, similar to that which we see in ten thousand subjects of nature which are nearer to us, but in power, and in the extent of space through which that power is exerted, stupendous.

But many of the heavenly bodies, as the sun and fixed stars, are stationary. Their rest must be the effect of an absence or of an equilibrium of attractions. It proves also that a projectile impulse was originally given to some of the heavenly bodies, and not to others. But farther; if attraction act at all distances, there can only be one quiescent centre of gravity in the universe: and all bodies whatever must be approaching this centre, or revolving round it. According to the

The planets going round, all in the same direc-earth: all this requires an intelligent interposition, and all nearly in the same plane, afforded to Buffon a ground for asserting that they had all been shivered from the sun by the same stroke of a comet, and by that stroke projected into their present orbits. Now, beside that this is to attribute to chance the fortunate concurrence of velocity and direction which we have been here noticing, the hypothesis, as I apprehend, is inconsistent with the physical laws by which the heavenly motions are governed. If the planets were struck off from the surface of the sun, they would return to the surface of the sun again. Nor will this difficulty be got rid of, by supposing that the same violent blow which shattered the sun's surface, and separated large fragments from it, pushed the sun himself out of his place; for, the consequence of this would be, that the sun and system of shattered fragments would have a progressive motion, which, indeed, may possibly be the case with our system; but then each fragment would, in every revolution, return to the surface of the sun again. The hypothesis is also contradicted, by the vast difference which subsists between the diameters of the planetary orbits. The distance of Saturn from the sun (to say nothing of the Georgium Sidus) is nearly five-and-twenty times that of Mercury; a disparity, which it seems impossible to reconcile with Buffon's scheme. Bodies starting from the same place, with whatever difference of direction or velocity they set off, could not have been found at these different distances from the centre, still retaining their nearly circular orbits. They must

*If we suppose the matter of the system to be accumulated in the centre by its gravity, no mechanical principles, with the assistance of this power of gravity, could separate the vast mass into such parts as the sun and planets; and, after carrying them to their different distances, project them in their several directions, preserving still the quality of action, and reaction, or the state of the centre of gravity of the system. Such an exquisite structure of things could only arise from the contrivance and powerful influences of an intelligent, free, and most potent agent. The same powers, there fore, which, at present, govern the material universe, and conduct its various motions, are very different from those which were necessary 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 Philos. p. 407. ed. 3.

the design with which they were constructed. I would be sufficient to prove it; that no contriThat supposition involves all the absurdity of self-vance, were it ever so mechanical, ever so precise, creation, i. e. of acting without existing. Nothing ever so clear, ever so perfectly like those which we can be God, which is ordered by a wisdom and a ourselves employ, would support this conclusion. will, which itself is void of; which is indebted for A doctrine, to which, I conceive, no sound mind any of its properties to contrivance ab extra. The can assent." not having that in his nature which requires the exertion of another prior being (which property is sometimes called self-sufficiency, and sometimes self-comprehension,) appertains to the Deity, as his essential distinction, and removes his nature from that of all things which we see. Which consideration contains the answer to a question that has sometimes been asked, namely, Why, since something or other must have existed from eternity, may not the present universe be that something? The contrivance perceived in it, proves that to be impossible. Nothing contrived, can, in a strict and proper sense, be eternal, forasmuch as the contriver must have existed before the contrivance.

of the machine; that there is a secret spring, or a gravitating plummet;-in a word, that there is force, and energy, as well as mechanism.

motions in each case: or they may be the result of trains of mechanical dispositions, fixed beforehand by an intelligent appointment, and kept in action by a power at the centre. But, in either case, there must be intelligence.

So then, the watch in motion establishes to the observer two conclusions: One; that thought, contrivance, and design have been employed in The minds of most men are fond of what they the forming, proportioning, and arranging of its call a principle, and of the appearance of simpliparts; and that whoever or wherever he be, or city, in accounting for phenomena. Yet this were, such a contriver there is, or was: The principle, this simplicity, resides merely in the other; that force or power, distinct from mecha- name; which name, after all, comprises, perhaps, nism, is, at this present time, acting upon it. If I under it a diversified, multifarious, or progressive saw a handmill even at rest, I should see contri- operation, distinguishable into parts. The power vance: but if I saw it grinding, I should be as- in organized bodies, of producing bodies like themsured that a hand was at the windlass, though in selves, is one of these principles. Give a philosoanother room. It is the same in nature. In the pher this, and he can get on. But he does not works of nature we trace mechanism; and this reflect, what this mode of production, this princialone proves contrivance: but living, active, mov-ple (if such he choose to call it) requires; how ing, productive nature, proves also the exertion of much it presupposes; what an apparatus of ina power at the centre; for, wherever the power struments, some of which are strictly mechanical, resides may be denominated the centre. is necessary to its success; what a train it includes The intervention and disposition of what are of operations and changes, one succeeding another, called "second causes," fall under the same observ-one related to another, one ministering to another; ation. This disposition is or is not mechanism, all advancing, by intermediate, and, frequently, according as we can or cannot trace it by our by sensible steps to their ultimate result! Yet, senses and means of examination. That is all the because the whole of this complicated action is difference there is; and it is a difference which wrapped-up in a single term, generation, we are respects our faculties, not the things themselves. to set it down as an elementary principle; and to Now where the order of second causes is mecha- suppose, that when we have resolved the things nical, what is here said of mechanism strictly ap- which we see in this principle, we have sufficientplies to it. But it would be always mechanism ly accounted for their origin, without the neces (natural chymistry, for instance, would be mecha- sity of a designing, intelligent Creator. The nism,) if our senses were acute enough to descry truth is, generation is not a principle but a process. it. Neither mechanism, therefore, in the works We might as well call the casting of metals a prinof nature, nor the intervention of what are called ciple; we might, so far as appears to me, as well second causes, (for I think that they are the same call spinning and weaving principles: and, then, thing,) excuses the necessity of an agent distinct referring the texture of cloths, the fabric of muslins and calicoes, the patterns of diapers and damasks, to these, as principles, pretend to dispense with intention, thought, and contrivance, on the part of the artist; or to dispense, indeed, with the necessity of any artist at all, either in the manufacturing of the article, or in the fabrication of the machinery by which the manufacture was carried on.

from both.

If, in tracing these causes, it be said, that we find certain general properties of matter which have nothing in them that bespeaks intelligence, I answer, that, still, the managing of these properties, the pointing and directing them to the uses which we see made of them, demands intelligence in the highest degree. For example: suppose animal secretions to be elective attractions, and that such and such attractions universally belong to such and such substances; in all which there is no intellect concerned; still the choice and collocation of these substances, the fixing upon right substances, and disposing them in right places, must be an act of intelligence. What mischief would follow, were there a single transposition of the secretory organs; a single mistake in arranging the glands which compose them!

There may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind another, between what we observe of nature, and the Deity: but there must be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what we see; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an intelligent, designing author. The philosopher beholds with astonishment the production of things around him. Unconscious particles of matter take their stations, and severally range themselves in an order, so as to become collectively plants or animals, i. e. organized bodies, with parts bearing strict and evident relation to one another, and to the utility of the whole: and it should seem that these particles could not move in any other way than as they do; for they testify not the smallest sign of choice, or liberty, or discretion. There may be particular intelligent beings, guiding these

And, after all, how, or in what sense, is it true, that animals produce their like? A butterfly, with a proboscis instead of a mouth, with four wings and six legs, produces a hairy caterpillar, with jaws and teeth, and fourteen feet. A frog produces a tadpole. A black beetle, with gauze wings, and a crusty covering, produces a white, smooth, soft worm; an ephemeron fly, a cod-bait maggot. These, by a progress through different stages of life, and action, and enjoyment, (and, in each state, provided with implements and organs appropriated to the temporary nature which they bear,) arrive at last at the form and fashion of the parent animal. But all this is process, not principle; and proves, moreover, that the property of animated bodies, of producing their like, belongs to them not as a primordial property, not by any blind necessity in the nature of things, but as the effect of economy, wisdom, and design; because the property itself assumes diversities, and submits to deviations dictated by intelligible utilities, and serving distinct purposes of animal happiness.

The opinion, which would consider "generation" as a principle in nature; and which would assign this principle as the cause, or endeavour to satisfy our minds with such a cause, of the exist ence of organized bodies; is confuted, in my judgment, not only by every mark of contrivance dis