ASTRONOMY. 257 



by ever so little, increased their distance from the centre, 

 would for ever have receded from it. The laws, therefore, 

 of attraction, by which a system of revolving bodies couh' 

 be upholden in their motions, lie within narrow limits, com- 

 pared with the possible laws. I much underrate the re- 

 striction, when I say that, in a scale of a mile, they are 

 conhned to an inch. All direct ratios of the distance are 

 excluded, on account of danger from perturbing forces; all 

 reciprocal ratios, except what lie beneath the cube of the 

 distance, by the demonstrable consequence, that every the 

 least change of distance would, under the operation of such 

 laws, have been fatal to the repose and order of the system. 

 We do not know, that is, we seldom reflect, how interested 

 we are in this matter. Small irregularities may be en- 

 dured ; but changes within these limits being allowed for, 

 the permanency of our ellipse is a question of life and death 

 to our whole sensitive world. 



{*) III. That the subsisting law of attraction falls with- 

 in the limits which utility requires, when these Umits bear 

 so small a proportion to the range of possibilities upon which 

 chance might equally have cast it, is not, with any appear- 

 ance of reason, to be accounted for by any other cause than 

 a regulation proceeding from a designing mind. But our 

 next proposition carries the matter somewhat further. We 

 say, in the third place, that out of the different laws which 

 lie within the limits of admissible laws, the best is made 

 choice of; that there are advantages in this particular law 

 which cannot be demonstrated to belong to any other law : 

 and concerning some of which, it can be demonstrated that 

 they do not belong to any other. 



{*) 1 . While this law prevails between all particles of 

 matter; the united attraction of a sphere composed of that 

 matter observes the same law. This property of the law is 

 necessary to render it applicable to a system composed of 

 spheres, but it is a property which belongs to no other law 

 of attraction that is admissible. The law of variation of 



