218 ASTRONOMY. 



cumstances and laws, sufficient to indicate an intellectual 

 agency in three of its principal operations, viz. in choosing, 

 in determining, in regulating; in choosing, out of a bound- 

 less variety of suppositions which were equally possible, 

 that which is beneficial ; in determining, what, left to it- 

 self, had a thousand chances against conveniency, for one 

 in its favour ; in re^^^/«f^«^ subjects, as to quantity and de- 

 gree, which, by their nature, were unlimited with respect 

 to either. It will be our business to offer, under each of 

 these heads, a few instances, such as best admit of a popu- 

 lar explication. 



I. Amongst proofs of choice, one is, fixing the source 

 of light and heat in the centre of the system. The sun is 

 ignited and luminous; the planets which move round him, 

 cold and dark. There seems to be no antecedent necessity 

 for this order. The sun might have been an opaque mass; 

 some one, or two, or more, or any, or all, of the planets, 

 globes of fire. There is nothing in the nature of the heav- 

 enly bodies, which requires that those which are stationary 

 should be on fire, that those which move should be cold ; 

 forj in fact, comets are bodies on fire,* yet revolve round 

 a centre ; nor does this order obtain between the primary 

 planets and their secondaries, which are all opaque. When 

 we consider, therefore, that the sun is one ; that the planets 

 going round it are, at least, seven ;t that it is indifferent to 

 their nature which are luminous and which are opaque : 

 and also, in what order with respect to each other, these 

 two kinds of bodies are disposed j we may judge of the im- 



* It may be reasonably doubted whether comets are ever absolute- 

 ly "on fire;" and yet some of them, from their near approach to the 

 sun, must certainly be "capable of intense heat." If we conceive 

 the earth's distance from the sun to be divided into 1000 parts, the 

 comet of 16S0 was, at one time, not more distant than six of those 

 parts from the sun. From hence Sir I. Newton calculated that it 

 was exposed to a heat which was 2000 times greater than that of a 

 red-hot iron. Paxton. 



t The seven planets here alluded to, are Mercury, Venus, the 

 Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Georgium Sidus ; we now 

 Jinow that there are four more, Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta ; the 

 first of these was discovered in 1801, the second was observed in 

 March, 1802, the third, was not discovered till 1804, nor the last till 

 1807. Now Dr. Paley's dedication is. dated July, 1802; it is very 

 possible, therefore, that this 22d chapter was written before he had 

 heard of Pallas, and even while it was yet doubtful whether Ceres 

 was a comet or a planet. This will explain the reason for his hav- 

 ing qualified the expression, and having said, " at least seven." 



