STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM. 169 



appliances and aids we can obtain, are barely 

 sufficient to enable us to see that the end is thus 

 secured, and that it can be secured in no other 

 way. Surely the obvious impression which arises 

 from this view of the subject is, that the solar 

 system, with its adjustments, is the work of an 

 Intelligence, who perceives, as self-evident, those 

 truths, to which we attain painfully and slowly, 

 and after all imperfectly ; who has employed in 

 every part of creation refined contrivances, which 

 we can only with effort understand; and who, 

 in innumerable instances, exhibits to us what we 

 should look upon as remarkable difficulties re- 

 markably overcome, if it were not that, through 

 the perfection of the provision, the trace of the 

 difficulty is almost obliterated. 



CHAPTER IV. 

 The Sun in the Centre. 



THE next circumstance which we shall notice as 

 indicative of design in the arrangement of the 

 material portions of the solar system, is the posi- 

 tion of the sun, the source of light and heat, in 

 the centre of the system. This could hardly 

 have occurred by any thing which we can call 

 chance. Let it be granted, that the law of gra- 

 vitation is established, and that we have a large 



