240 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 



themselves gods, they are still severally kept m their orbits by 

 gods. And when gravitation came to dispense with these ce- 

 lestial steersmen, there was begotten a belief, less gross than 

 its parent, but partaking of the same essential nature, that 

 the planets were originally launched into their orbits from 

 the Creator's hand. Evidently, though much refined, the an- 

 thropomorphism of the current hypothesis is inherited from 

 the aboriginal anthropomorphism, w^hich described gods as 

 a stronger order of men. 



There is an antagonist hypothesis which does not pro- 

 pose to honour the Unknown Power manifested in the Uni- 

 verse, by such titles as "The Mastei-Builder," or "The 

 Great Artifi*cer ; " but which regards this Unknown Power 

 as probably working after a method quite different from 

 that of human mechanics. And the genealogy of this hy- 

 pothesis is as high as that of the. other is low\ It is begot- 

 ten by that ever-enlarging and ever-strengthening belief in 

 the presence of Law, which accumulated experiences have 

 gradually produced in the human mind. From generation 

 to generation Science has been proving uniformities of re- 

 lation among phenomena which were before thought either 

 fortuitous or supernatural in their origin — has been showing 

 an established order and a constant causation where igno- 

 rance had assumed irregularity and arbitrariness. Each fur- 

 ther discovery of Law has increased the presumption that 

 Law is everywhere conformed to. And hence, among 

 other beliefs, has arisen the belief that the Solar System 

 originated, not by manufacture but by evolution. Besides 

 its abstract parentage in those grand general conceptions 

 which positive Science has generated, this hypothesis has a 

 concrete parentage of the highest character. Based as it 

 is on the law of universal gravitation, it may claim for its 

 remote progenitor the great thinker who established that 

 law. The man who gave it its general shape, by promulga- 

 ting the doctruie that stars result from the aggregation of 



