AND THEORY OF THE HEAVENS. 23 



of such diverse nature should tend in combination with 

 each other to effectuate harmonies and beauties so admir- 

 ably, and even to subserve the ends of such things as are 

 found in some respects outside of the sphere of dead 

 matter (as in being useful to men and animals), unless 

 they acknowledged a common origin, namely, an Infinite 

 Intelligence, an Understanding in which the essential pro- 

 perties of all things have been relatively designed? If 

 their natures were necessary by themselves and indepen- 

 dent, what an astonishing chance ; or, rather, what an 

 impossibility would it be that they should so exactly fit 

 in to each other with their natural activities and tend- 

 encies, just as if a reflective prudent choice had combined 

 them ! 



Now then, I confidently apply this idea to my present 

 undertaking. I accept the matter of the whole world at 

 the beginning as in a state of general dispersion, and 

 make of it a complete chaos. I see this matter forming 

 itself in accordance with the established laws of attraction, 

 and modifying its movement by repulsion. I enjoy the 

 pleasure, without having recourse to arbitrary hypotheses, 

 of seeing a well-ordered whole produced under the regu- 

 lation of the established laws of motion, and this whole 

 looks so like that system of the world which we have 

 before our eyes, that I cannot refuse to identify it with 

 it. This unexpected development of the order of nature 

 in the universe begins to become suspicious to me, 

 when such a complicated order is founded upon so poor 

 and simple a foundation. But at last I draw instruction 

 from the view already indicated, namely, that such a 

 development of nature is not a thing unheard of in it ; 

 nay, that its inherent essential striving brings such a result 



