the structure of the world, might have been otherwise, and which are what they are in consequence of choice or of chance. We have already seen, in many of the cases separately, how unlike chance every thing looks: -that substances, which might have existed any how, so far as they themselves are concerned, exist exactly in such a manner and measure as they should, to secure the welfare of other things:-that the laws are tempered and fitted together in the only way in which the world could have gone on, according to all that we can conceive of it. This must, therefore, be the work of choice; and if so, it cannot be doubted, of a most wise and benevolent Chooser. : III. The appearance of choice is still further illustrated by the variety as well as the number of the laws selected. The laws are unlike one another. Steam certainly expands at a very different rate from air by the application of heat, probably according to a different law water expands in freezing, but mercury contracts: heat travels in a manner quite different through solids and fluids. Every separate substance has its own density, gravity, cohesion, elasticity, its relations to heat, to electricity, to magnetism; besides all its chemical affinities, which form an endless throng of laws, connecting every one substance in creation with every other, and different for each pair anyhow taken. Nothing can look less like a world formed of atoms operating upon each other according to some universal and inevitable laws, than this does: if such a system of things be conceivable, it cannot be our system. We have, it may be, fifty simple substances in the world; each of which is invested with properties, both of chemical and mechanical action, altogether different from those of any other substance. Every portion, however minute, of any of these, possesses all the properties of the substance. Of each of these substances there is a certain unalterable quantity in the universe; when combined, their compounds exhibit new chemical affinities, new mechanical laws. Who gave these different laws to the different substances? who proportioned the quantity of each? But suppose this done. Suppose these substances in existence; in contact; in due proportion to each other. Is this a world, or at least our world? No more than the mine and the forest are the ship of war or the factory. These elements, with their constitution perfect, and their proportion suitable, are still a mere chaos. They must be put in their places. They must not be where their own properties would place them. They must be made to assume a particular arrangement, or we can have no regular and permanent course of nature. This arrangement must again have additional peculiarities, or we can have no organic portion of the world. The millions of millions of particles which the world contains, must be finished up in as complete a manner, and fitted into their places with as much nicety, as the most delicate wheel or spring in a piece of human machinery. What are the habits of thought to which it can appear possible that this could, take place without design, intention, intelligence, purpose, knowledge? In what has just been said, we have spoken only of the constitution of the inorganic part of the universe. The mechanism, if we may so call it, of vegetable and animal life, is so far beyond our comprehension, that though some of the same observations might be applied to it, we do not dwell upon the subject. We know that in these processes also, the mechanical and chemical properties of matter are necessary, but we know too that these alone will not account for the phenomena of life. There is something more than these. The lowest stage of vitality and irritability appears to carry us beyond mechanism, beyond chemical affinity. All that has been said with regard to the exactness of the adjustments, the combination of various means, the tendency to continuance, to preservation, is applicable with additional force to the organic creation, so far as we can perceive the means employed. These, however, belong to a different province of the subject, and must be left to other hands. BOOK II. COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. WHEN we turn our attention to the larger portions of the universe, the sun, the planets, and the earth as one of them, the moon and other satellites, the fixed stars, and other heavenly bodies;-the views which we obtain concerning their mutual relations, arrangement and movements, are called, as we have already stated, cosmical views. These views will, we conceive, afford us indications of the wisdom and care of the Power by which the objects which we thus consider, were created and are preserved and we shall now proceed to point out some circumstances in which these attributes may be traced. It has been observed by writers on Natural Theology, that the arguments for the being and perfections of the Creator, drawn from cosmical considerations, labour under some disadvantages when compared with the arguments founded on those provisions and adaptations which more immediately affect the well being of organised creatures. The structure of the solar system has far less analogy with such machinery as we can construct and comprehend, than we find in the structure of the bodies of animals, or even in the causes of the weather. Moreover, we do not see the immediate bearing of cosmical arrangements on that end which we most readily acknowledge to be useful and desirable, the support and comfort of sentient natures: so that, from both causes, the impression of benevolent design in this case is less striking and pointed than that which results from the examination of some other parts of nature. But in considering the universe, according to the view we have taken, as a collection of laws, astronomy, the science which teaches us the laws of the motions of the heavenly bodies, possesses some advantages, among the subjects from which we may seek to learn the character of the government of the world. For our knowledge of the laws of the motions of the planets ✓ and satellites is far more complete and exact, far more thorough and satisfactory, than the knowledge which we possess in any other department of Natural Philosophy. Our acquaintance with the laws of the solar system is such, that we can calculate the precise place and motion of most of its parts at any period, past or future, however remote; and we can refer the changes which take place in these circumstances to their proximate cause, the attraction of one mass of matter to another, acting between all the parts of the universe. If, therefore, we trace indications of the Divine care, either in the form of the laws which prevail among the heavenly bodies, or in the arbitrary quantities which such laws involve; (according to the distinction explained in the former part of this work ;) we may expect that our examples of such care, though they may be less numerous and obvious, will be more precise than they can be in other subjects, where the laws of facts are imperfectly known, and their causes entirely hid. We trust that this will be found to be the case with regard to some of the examples which we shall adduce. CHAP. I.-The Structure of the Solar System. IN the cosmical considerations which we have to offer, we shall suppose the general truths concerning the structure of the solar system and of the universe, which have been established by astronomers and mathematicians, to be known to the reader. It is not necessary to go into much detail on this subject. The five planets known to the ancients, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, revolve round the sun, at different distances, in orbits nearly circular, and nearly |