94 COSM03. 



liptic orbits of Juno, Pallas, and Mercury have the greatest 

 degree of eccentricity, and Mars and Venus, which immedi- 

 ately follow each other, have the least. Mercury and Venus 

 exhibit the same contrasts that may be observed in the four 

 smaller planets, or asteroids, whose paths are so closely inter- 

 woven. 



The eccentricities of Juno and Pallas are very nearly iden- 

 tical, and are each three times as great as those of Ceres and 

 Vesta. The same rnay be said of the inclination of the orbits 

 of the planets toward the plane of projection of the ecliptic, or 

 in the position of their axes of rotation with relation to their 

 orbits, a position on which the relations of climate, seasons of 

 the year, and length of the days depend more than on eccen- 

 tricity. Those planets that have the most elongated elliptic 

 orbits, as Juno, Pallas, and Mercury, have also, although not 

 to the same degree, their orbits most strongly inclined toward 

 the ecliptic. Pallas has a comet-like inclination nearly twen- 

 ty-six times greater than that of Jupiter, while in the little 

 planet Vesta, which is so near Pallas, the angle of inclination 

 scarcely by six times exceeds that of Jupiter. An equally ir- 

 regular succession is observed in the position of the axes of 

 the few planets (four or live) whose planes of rotation we 

 know with any degree of certainty. It would appear from 

 the position of the satellites of Uranus, two of which, the sec- 

 ond and fourth, have been recently observed with certainty, 

 that the axis of this, the outermost of all the planets, is scarce- 

 ly inclined as much as 11 toward the plane of its orbit, while 

 Saturn is placed between this planet, whose axis almost coin- 

 cides with the plane of its orbit, and J upiter, whose axis of 

 rotation is nearly perpendicular to it. 



In this enumeration of the forms which compose the world 

 in space, we have delineated them as possessing an actual ex- 

 istence, and not as objects of intellectual contemplation, or as 

 mere links of a mental and causal chain of connection. The 

 planetary system, in its relations of absolute size and relative 

 position of the axes, density, time of rotation, and different de- 

 gress of eccentricity of the orbits, does not appear to offer to 

 our apprehension any stronger evidence of a natural necessity 

 than the proportion observed in the distribution of land arid 

 water on the Earth, the configuration of continents, or the 

 height of mountain chains. In these respects we can discover 

 no common law in the regions of space or in the inequalities 

 of the earth's crust. They are facts in nature that have 

 arisen fp.m the conflict of manifold forces acting under un 



