COMETS. 391 



It forms a part in the great scheme of Provi- 

 dence in the physical government of the uni- 

 verse, so long as it shall please God, that that 

 universe shall continue to exist, that those evils 

 shall not take place, they are prevented from 

 taking place not by the annihilation of matter, 

 but by the decomposition of it ; by bereaving 

 it of those powers of expanding, which it 

 had factitiously obtained, Whence (it may be 

 asked) are the means, through the agency of 

 which the end is obtained ? They are before the 

 eyes of all, and are generally understood. It is 

 generally understood, because it is a general 

 fact, that the expansibility of air is weakened 

 and destroyed, by combustion ; whilst the base 

 of which the air was composed, becomes sepa- 

 rated from the light, the light is given out, as I 

 have before explained, in a calorific and colori- 

 fic state; and it may be presumed that by an ex- 

 tension of the same process it becomes purified 

 from the dross with which it had combined, 

 and is returned back to the sun itself, from 

 whence it was derived. 



It was from a course of investigation such as 

 this, that so long as eighteen years ago, I was led 

 to conclude, that COMETS were the instruments 

 which were employed to perform this beneficent 

 purpose ; that they were bodies which formed 

 the Jines of separation, and of demarkation* 

 between the planetary spheres : proclaiming 



