22 EXPLANATIONS. 



most necessitates the commencement of a process, 

 which, though slow and vague at first, has, it will 

 be found, the inherent power of reaching a perfect 

 and definite condition . . ."* 



The exception presented by the satellites of 

 Uranus to the otherwise uniform orbitual move- 

 ments of the planetary bodies, is brought forward 

 as a startling difficulty.t It is, in reality, only a 

 trifling objection, seeing that so many other move- 

 ments follow one rule, and that we may any day be 

 able to fix upon a cause for this exception, per- 

 fectly in harmony with all the associated facts. 

 There was once a similar difficulty in geology — 

 strata uppermost where they ought to have been 

 lowermost ; but it was in time cleared. Geologists 

 found that there had been a folding over of the 

 strata, so as to reverse their proper and original 

 positions. May we not rest in hope, that a similar 

 exception in astronomy may find a similar solu- 

 tion ? I have thrown out the hint of a possible 

 bouleversement of the whole of that planet's system : 

 it has been scoffed at ; but it is only the sup- 



* Views of the Architecture of the Heavens. First edition, 

 1837. 

 t Edinburgh Review, No. 165, p. 24. 



