STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. 167 



considered this subject, that such a coincidence of 

 the existing state with the mechanical requisites 

 of permanency cannot be accidental. Laplace 

 has attempted to calculate the probability that 

 it is not the result of accident. He takes into 

 account, in addition to the motions which we 

 have mentioned, the revolutions of the satellites 

 about their primaries, and of the sun and planets 

 about their axes : and he finds that there is a 

 probability, far higher than that which we have 

 for the greater part of undoubted historical 

 events, that these appearances are not the effect 

 of chance. " We ought, therefore," he says, 

 "to believe, with at least the same confidence, 

 that a primitive cause has directed the planetary 

 motions." 



The solar system is thus, by the confession 

 of all sides, completely different from anything 

 which we might anticipate from the casual oper- 

 ation of its known laws. The laws of motion are 

 no less obeyed to the letter in the most irregular 

 than in the most regular motions ; no less in the 

 varied circuit of the ball which flies round a 

 tennis court, than in the going of a clock ; no 

 less in the fantastical jets and leaps which 

 breakers make when they burst in a corner of 

 a rocky shore, than in the steady swell of the 

 open sea. The laws of motion alone will not 

 produce the regularity which we admire in the 

 motions of the heavenly bodies. There must be 



