THE ETHER. 141 



no otherwise. How should the properties of 

 these three great classes of agents, visible objects, 

 air, and light, so harmonize and assist each other, 

 that order and life should be the result ? Without 

 all the three, and all the three constituted in their 

 present manner, and subject to their present 

 laws, living things could not exist. If the earth 

 had no atmosphere, or if the world had no ether, 

 all must be inert and dead. Who constructed 

 these three extraordinarily complex pieces of 

 machinery, the earth with its productions, the 

 atmosphere, and the ether? Who fitted them 

 into each other in many parts, and thus made it 

 possible for them to work together ? We con- 

 ceive there can be but one answer ; a most wise 

 and good God. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Recapitulation . 



1. IT has been shown in the preceding chapters 

 that a great number of quantities and laws appear 

 to have been selected in the construction of the 

 universe ; and that by the adjustment to each 

 other of the magnitudes and laws thus selected, 

 the constitution of the world is what we find it, 

 and is fitted for the support of vegetables and 

 animals, in a manner in which it could not have 



