90 LAWS AND DEVELOPMENTS. 



or more bodies, whose orbit of revolution will be such as was 

 described by the position of the previous ring. 



This consideration not only explains the origin of the planets 

 satellites, and asteroids, of our own solar system, from the 

 materials of previous nebulous rings, but suggests that anal- 

 ogous singular and multiple conglobations must, seemingly of 

 necessity, have, in like manner, been formed in the sidereal 

 spaces, from the materials of nebulous rings surrounding their 

 Respective centers, these all being subordinate to a final and 

 common Center, as all created things proceed from a final and 

 common Cause. 



We may, therefore, say, that there are many avenues open 

 toward the hypothesis we have propounded respecting the 

 origin and structure of the universe, and many guide-boards 

 (or facts and principles), pointing along these avenues, all in the 

 same direction ; while, if the mind attempts to travel in a dif- 

 ferent direction, and in quest of other conclusions, it not only 

 finds no such guide-boards to direct it, and no such avenues 

 open for its passage, but it is constantly obstructed by barriers 

 of philosophical difficulty, and each of the steps of its progress 

 is planted only on the miry and treacherous ground of assum-p- 

 cion. While, therefore, the mind is ever held open to the re- 

 eption of new light, and a willingness is preserved to abandon, 

 any present errors for the sake of subsequently unfolded 

 truths, it would seem that we might, without subjecting our- 

 selves to any just charge of philosophical rashness, settle, in 

 the present conviction, that the foregoing hypothesis, at least, 

 as to its general and most essential princioles, can not vary 

 much from the truth. 



