DR. WHE well's VIEWS CONSIDERED. 131 



what a fluid mass rotating at such a rate of speed 

 would assume any day we might try the experi- 

 ment. The relative distances of the planets have 

 been determined by the relation of two laws of 

 matter, so thoroughly patent in thek working to 

 modem obsenation, that a mathematician could 

 ascertain this their result and announce it from 

 his closet, although he never had heard of a plane- 

 tary system in which it was exemplified. There 

 is, surely, here anything but a likelihood that dif- 

 ferent causes from those now existing and acting, 

 were the immediate means of producing the cos- 

 mical arrangements. May we not rather say that, 

 whatever may have been the details of the forma- 

 tion of globes, we possess ample proof that it was 

 a phenomenon evolved by virtue of exactly the 

 same system of order which we see still operating 

 upon earth ? As to the origin of organic beings, 

 our knowledge of geology comes to precisely a 

 similar effect. Admitting that we see not now any 

 such fact as the production of new species, we at 

 least know that, while such facts were occurring 

 upon earth, there were associated phenomena in 

 progress, of a character perfectly ordinary. For 

 example, when the earth received its first fishes, 

 sandstone and limestone were forming in the 



