THE COSMICAL STRUCTURE. 121 



subject of these speculations is shown that it is merely an 

 apple he will consider this as of itself a sufficient refutation 

 of his speculations, so far as that object was concerned ; be- 

 cause he considers the internal molecular motions of the apple 

 as being governed by a principle of life, and this he regards 

 as of itself amply sufficient to keep up the equilibrium of its 

 particular parts. 



But each cluster, or firmament, of suns, with its planets, is, 

 in principle, but an apple on a large scale. Some of the more 

 distant, and less easily resolvable, nebulae, indeed, appear to a 

 telescope of small power, almost in the identical form and 

 sitfe of an apple ; and, viewed apart from all other considera- 

 tions than those suggested by their own proper aspects, as the 

 white, milky spots, which they present to telescopes incapable 

 of resolving them, one might have easily conceived that they 

 were agitated by internal motions ; but the conception that 

 these internal motions were referable to external and mechan- 

 ical impulses, and that the moving bodies (which the distance 

 of view reduces to molecules) were sustained in equilibrio by 

 counter impulses, according to the Newtonian theory of plan- 

 etary motion, would have been as unnatural and far-fetched, 

 as would be precisely the same theory applied to the internal 

 molecular motions of an apple. 



Indeed, it is conceivable that one might be miraculously 

 elevated above the whole plane of sidereal creations to a 

 distance so great that, as he looked down upon the whole uni- 

 verse of firmaments, the whole might present one unresolved 

 mass apparently, from that distance, no larger than the size 

 of an apple. Now, when we remember that in the workings 

 of principles there is absolutely no distinction made between 

 great and small bodies, how naturally may it be supposed that 

 the whole universe, with all its included sub-universes is per 



II 



