NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 25 



such an inquiry as one, in which we have not, at 

 present, ground for a single step, it is surely a 

 great gratification that we can at least trace the 

 operations of the Great First Cause, from a con- 

 dition of matter anterior to its present forms, and 

 learn with certainty that these operations were in 

 no way arbitrary or capricious, that they were 

 not single and detached phenomena, but the result 

 of principles flowing from the Eternal and Im- 

 mutable, and which prevailed over all the realms 

 of Infinity at once. 



We have fixed mechanical laws at one end of 

 the system of nature. If we turn to the mind and 

 morals of man, we find that we have equally fixed 

 laws at the other. The human being, a mystery 

 considered as an indi^'idual, becomes a simple 

 natural phenomenon when taken in the mass, 

 for a regularity is observed in every peculiarity of 

 OUT constitution and every form of thought and 

 deed of which we are capable, when we only ex- 

 tend our \iew over a sufficiently wide range. It 

 is to M. Quetelet, of Brussels, that we are indebted 

 for the first satisfactory explication of this great 

 truth : it is presented in his well-known and very 



