200 POSTSCRIPT, 



parts in our cosmogony independently of each other, and the giving 

 up of the British astronomer's ideas about nebulous matter does not 

 in the slightest degree affect the results attained by the French 

 geometer. These rest on rigid calculations, which can never be 

 gainsaid. What he did, was to prove there being more than four 

 millions of millions of chances against one, that the uniform direc- 

 tion of the forty-three motions then ascertained amongst the plane- 

 tary bodies, was the result of one primitive cause, and to show the 

 " dynamical possibility" of the solar system being evolved in its 

 existing forms and arrangements by the ascertained laws of the 

 universe. He afterwards took hold of Herschel's speculations on 

 nebulous matter, to point out the probable manner of this evolu- 

 tion ; but the Herschelian hypothesis, though provisionally adju- 

 vant, was not absolutely necessary to that of Laplace. The 

 Laplacian cosmogony takes us, independently, to a previous form 

 of matter, different from the present : all that we lose by the 

 abstraction of Herschel's views is, that we see no longer in the 

 sky any presumable specimens of this former state of matter. 



Perhaps this is to state the case on its very lowest grounds. 

 When we consider the indications afforded by the original crys- 

 talline floor of the earth, and the heat and expansion of its in- 

 ternal materials — when we look to the comets, the Zodiacal I^ight, 

 and what are called the November Meteors, we can hardly say 

 that we arei left by the Parsontown telescope in darkness, as to the 

 previous form of matter. Still, for all the purposes in view, it is suf- 

 ficient that we see the matter, whatever it was, put into its present 

 form and arrangements in the manner of natural law ; and so we 

 unquestionably have seen it, first with our geometrical eyes, in 

 the pages of I^aplace, and secondly with our actual vision on the 

 experimental table of Plateau. So, for the meantime, let it rest. 



I may take this opportunity of adverting to a preface to the 

 second edition of Dr. Whewell's Indications of the Creator, in 

 which the present volume is largely commented on. It appears 

 that the etymology of the term jaa/afiWo^^, in connexion with 

 the opinions avowed by Dr. Whewell, has led me to present a 

 different definition, from what he assigns, to those sciences to 



