THE 



THEORY OF THE FIRMAMENT. 



BUT as so many foiling inconveniences are found to 

 spring up on all sides, it should be deemed satisfactory 

 if any thing can be avouched less revolting. 



Let us, therefore, construct a scheme of the universe, 

 according to that measure of history hitherto known to us, 

 reserving for our future judgment all new lights, after 

 history, and through history, our philosophy, by induction, 

 may have reached a maturer age. But we will, in the 

 outset, premise some points that have reference to the 

 matter composing the heavenly bodies, whence their mo 

 tion and formation may be better understood ; afterwards 

 setting forth our thoughts and ideas of that motion itself, 

 the chief subject under discussion. 



Nature then, in the separating of matter, seems to have 

 drawn an impassable bar between the rare and dense, and to 

 have assigned the globe of the earth to the order of the 

 dense ; but every thing, from the very surface of the earth, 

 and its waters, to the utmost extremity of the firmament, to 

 that of the rare or volatile, as it were, to twin classes of first 

 principles, not indeed of equal but of suitable portions. 

 Nor indeed does either the water clinging to the clouds, or 

 the wind pent up in the earth, disarrange this natural and 

 appropriate position of things: but this difference, be 

 tween rare or volatile, and dense or tangible, is entirely 

 primordial or essential, and is what the system of the uni 

 verse chiefly has recourse to. It proceeds from a state 

 of things the most simple possible this is from the abun 

 dance and scarceness of matter, in proportion to its exten 

 sion. What belong to the order of subtile or volatile, as 



VOL. XV. B 



