compared with the Discoveries of the Modern Sciences. 243 
any disturbing cause threatens to interrupt the order and 
harmony of created things, she also destines for acts still 
more important. Their power, essentially conservative, 
brings the newly produced celestial bodies into a firm and 
stable condition—a character distinctive of stars arrived at 
their perfection. 
If the proofs of so many facts, the first knowledge of which 
we owe to Moses, are written in indelible characters on the 
strata which form the crust of the globe, those of the truth 
of the first verse of Genesis are traced in characters of fire 
on the celestial vault. It is there that we discover the con- 
firmation of it, and perceive its perfect accuracy. 
When we turn our attention to the immense assemblage of 
nebulosities and stars sparkling in the firmament, the laws 
of which the sacred writer has so distinctly perceived, we are 
less surprised that he has discerned with the same sagacity 
those which regulate and determine their movements. Moses 
gives us to understand that the stability of the course of the 
celestial bodies depends on their mutual gravitation, and 
the extent of the distance which separates them. 
It is true that he has not developed the system of attraction 
in all its extent; but he has fixed its principles, without 
expressing it in a scientific language which could not have 
been understood. He leads us at all times to understand 
that the law of gravitation regulates the phenomena of the 
universe, that it is sufficient for all, and maintains in it both 
order and variety. Emanating from Supreme Wisdom, this 
law has presided, since the origin of time, over the harmony 
of created things, and renders all disorder among them 
impossible. 
The discovery which enabled Newton to demonstrate that 
bodies attract each other in the direct ratio of their mass, 
and in the inverse ratio of the square of distance, is the noblest 
triumph of the human mind. At the same time this law is 
only the reduction of the celestial movements to a mechanical 
law, the cause of which remains unknown. Newton did not 
_ regard it otherwise, since he has employed the word only 
conditionally, as presenting a sensible image of the phenomena 
observed, quasi esset attractio. 
