ASTROTSF()MY. 219 



probability of the present arrangement taking place by 

 chance. 



If, by way of accounting for the state in which we find 

 the solar system, it be alleged, (and this is one amongst the 

 guesses of those who reject an intelligent Creator) that the 

 planets themselves are only cooled or cooling masses, and 

 were once, like the sun, many thousand times hotter thaii 

 red hot iron ; then it follows, that the sun also himself 

 must be in his progress towards growing cold ; which puts 

 an end to the possibility of his having existed, as he is,- 

 from eternity. This consequence arises out of the hypoth- 

 esis with still more certainty, if we make a part of it, what 

 the philosophers, who maintain it, have usually taught, thai 

 the planets were originally masses of matter struck off, in 

 a state of fusion, from the body of the sun, by the percus- 

 sion of a comet, or by a shock from some other cause with 

 which we are not acquainted ; for, if these masses, partak- 

 ing of the nature and substance of the sun's body, have in 

 process of time lost their heat, that body itself, in time 

 likewise, no matter in how much longer time, must lose its 

 heat also ; and therefore be incapable of an eternal dura- 

 tion in the state in which we see it, either for the time to 

 come, or the time past. 



The preference of the present to any other mode of dis- 

 tributing luminous and opaque bodies I take to be evident. 

 It requires more astronomy than I am able to lay before 

 the reader, to show, in its particulars, what would be the 

 effect to the system, of a dark body at the centre, and of 

 one of the planets being luminous: but I think it manifest, 

 without either plates or calculation, first, that, supposing 

 the necessary proportion of magnitude between the central 

 and the revolving bodies to be preserved, the ignited planet 

 would not be sufficient to illuminate and warm the rest of 

 the system ; secondly, that its light and heat would be im- 

 parted to 'the other planets, much more irregularly than 

 light and heat are now received from the sun. 



(*) II. Another thing, in which a choice appears to be 

 exercised, and in which, amongst the possibilities out of 

 which the choice was to be made, the number of those 

 which were wrong, bore an infinite proportion to the num- 

 ber of those which were right, is in what geometricians 

 call the axis of rotation. This matter I will endeavour 

 to explain. The earth, it is well known, is not an exact 

 globe, but an oblate spheroid, something like an orange. 

 JN^ow the axes of rotation, or the diameters upon which such 



