142 On the Formation of the. Universe. 
counter to one of the laws of investigation laid down by 
Newton; by assigning causes more than sufficient to pro- 
duce the effects in question ; for it would obviously be as 
easy for the Deity to create a body of whirling viscid mat- 
ter in the greater as in the smaller spheroid ; and then the 
process of driving it out from the centre would be unneces- 
sary. This is only taking a wide step toward the theory of 
condensation from an aerial state; for it would be just as 
easy for the Deity to create whirling spheroids of aerial, as 
of plastic or fluid matter, and then a mechanism for the 
motion of the satellites is contrived, as well as for that of the 
ring. ae 
Seibel for the relative densities of the various bodies 
in the system, seems at first beyond the grasp of the theo- 
ry, because we cannot inspect the interior even of our own 
planent, much less can we that of the rest. But it isa well 
known fact that all large bodies of condensing homogeneous 
substances, stiffen first on the out side ; and the supposition 
is perfectly reasonable; that the bodies of the solar system 
might so stiffen near their surface, while the interior remain- 
ed very much d and expanded. Beneath this crust, 
the interior parts would collect and condense upon it, a8 
water on the lower surface of ice, until it became strong 
enough to support itself by its own density. It would then 
cease to sink any further toward the centre, and the remain- 
‘ing fluid or viscid parts of the body, as the heat gradually 
abandoned them, would shrink so as to form immense cav- 
erns, or would collect together on a central globe, which 
might eventually become entirely disunited with the exter- 
nal shell. In such a case it is easy to see, that it would first 
be disunited from the polls of the external shell, because 
they would cool most rapidly on account of their distance 
from the great solar fire, and the obliquity of the rays from 
that fire, which aided in continuing their heat. It would 
then gradually be detached from the equator of the shell, 
till it adhered only at a single point; and eventually, if it 
separated from the whole, and its centrifugal force from 
the common centre of gravity of the two parts, were, 
by disturbance, in the least diminished, it is rigidly de- 
monstrable, that the internal globe would immediately move 
toward one of the poles of the external shell, and there }8 
an infinity of chances against one, that it would change both 
the direction and degree of its diurnal velocity. ‘The inter 
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