^4 HEAT AND LIGHT. 



quantity of heat. Therefore, whether a solar heat ray 

 traverses through one million, or one hundred million 

 miles of space, it still retains its power equally of 

 imparting warmth to the solid matter by which it 

 is intercepted. There is no law of variation as the 

 inverse square of the distance of those radiating powers. 

 Consequently, there is no reason why the physical con- 

 ditions, alike of the nearest and the most remote 

 planetary bodies, should not be so adjusted that they all 

 enjoy that life promoting temperature which belongs to 

 the earth. 



All the objects around us are adapted to the circum- 

 stances of the earth's position in relation to the sun, to 

 which we are bound by the principle of gravitation; 

 opposed to that centrifugal force which tends constantly 

 to drive the moving planetary mass off from the centre 

 of power. The balance maintains its perfect equilibrium, 

 although we have one power constantly drawing the 

 earth towards the sun, and the other as constantly 

 exerting itself to move it off into space at a tangent to 

 the orbit in which the planet moves. In our examina- 

 tion it will be found that one common system of harmony 

 runs through all the cosmical phenomena, by which 

 everything is produced that is so beautiful and joyous in 

 this world. 



Heat, and the other elementary radiant principles, 

 are often combined as the common cause of effects 

 evident to our senses. The warmth of the solar rays, 

 and their luminous influence, are not, however, com- 

 monly associated in the mind as the results of a 

 single cause. It is only when we come to examine the 

 physical phenomena connected with these radiations 

 that we discover the complexity of the inquiry. Yet it 

 is out of these very subtle researches that we draw the 

 most refined truths. The high inferences to which the 

 analysis of the subtile agencies of creation leads us, 

 render science, pursued in the spirit of truth, a great 

 system of religious instruction. 



