28 INDUCTION. 



ferior to them in point of evidence. Even if it were proved 

 (which it is not) that the conditions necessary for determining 

 the breaking off of successive rings would certainly occur ; 

 there would still be a much greater chance of error in assuming 

 that the existing laws of nature are the same which existed at 

 the origin of the solar system, than in merely presuming (with 

 geologists) that those laws have lasted through a few revo- 

 lutions and transformations of a single one among the bodies 

 of which that system is composed. 



