8 EXPLANATIONS. 



ing to our imagination by their grandeur, and to 

 our reason by the severe principles on which they 

 rest, the mind feels as if a revelation had been 

 vouchsafed to it of the past and future history of 

 the universe." It may also be remarked that this 

 writer considered the . hypothesis as " confirming, 

 rather than opposing the Mosaic cosmogony, 

 whether allegorically or literally interpreted." 

 With this testimony to the mathematical exposi- 

 tions of MM. La Place and Comte, I rest content, 

 as the expositions themselves would be unsuitable 

 in a popular treatise. But the hypothesis has 

 been favourably entertained in many authoritative 

 quarters, during the last few years, and probably 

 would have continued to be so, if no attempt had 

 been made to enforce by it a system, of nature on 

 the principle of universal order. 



The chief objection taken to the theory is, that 

 the existence of nebulous matter in the heavens is 

 disproved by the discoveries made by the Earl of 

 Rosse's telescope. By this wondrous tube, we 

 are told, it is shown to be " an unwarrantable as- 

 sumption that there are in the heavenly spaces 

 any masses of matter different from solid bodies 



