226 



air pushing toward the centre with immense 

 that com pressure on all the bodies it meets, that binds 

 together solids, keeps fluids as they we-re, causes th<3 

 rising of water, the production of vegetables and an-i- 

 mais, and in short, produces- all the effects- usually as- 

 cribed to gravitation or- attraction ; continues motion -, 

 without the assistance of the unmechanical principle of 

 projection, and is indeed the real cause of almost all the 

 effects and phenomena iu nature. 



As immensely different as this is,- from all the other- 

 systems of astronomy, very probable arguments are al- 

 ledged in confirmation of it. And more than proba- 

 bility, I doubt, we shall never .attain, .with regard to 

 things at so great a distance from ivs. 



But v. hat a strange discovery is tlrat, which lias been 

 lately communicated by an eminent professor to the Royal 

 Society? " Having carefully examined the modem 

 observations of the sun, with those of some centuries 

 past, though I have gone no farther back than the fif- 

 teenth century, yet I have observed that the motion of 

 the sun, (or of the earth) is sensibly accelerated since that 

 time, so that the years are shorter now than formerly. 

 The reason of- this is very. natural. . For if the -earth in 

 its motion suffers some resistance (which cannot be 

 doubted since the. space through which the planets pass, 

 is full of some subtle matter, were it ne other -than light) 

 this resistance will gradually bring the planets nearer 

 and nearer the sun. And as their orbits thereby become 

 less, so their periodical times will be diminislied*. Thus 

 in time the earth would conie within the regions of Ve- 

 nus, then of Mercury, where, it would necessarily be 

 burnt. Hence it is manifest, that the planetary system 

 cannot last for ever in its present state : as also that this 

 system must have had a beginning; otherwise there must, 

 have bern-a time when the earth was at the distance of 

 Saturn : consequently no living creature could subsist 

 there. This then is a clear proof, that the world - 

 in its present .state had a begi.ntiing, and must Lave. an -< 

 end. 



