172 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



was the candle placed upon the candlestick ? 

 how was the fire deposited on the hearth, so that 

 the comfort and well-being of the family might 

 be secured ? Did these too fall into their places 

 by the casual operation of gravity ? and, if not, 

 is there not here a clear evidence of intelligent 

 design, of arrangement with a benevolent end ? 



This argument is urged with great force by 

 Newton himself. In his first letter to Bentley, 

 he allows that matter might form itself into 

 masses by the force of attraction. " And thus," 

 says he, " might the sun and fixed stars be formed, 

 supposing the matter were of a lucid nature. 

 But how the matter should divide itself into two 

 sorts ; and that part of it which is fit to compose 

 a shining body should fall down into one mass, 

 and make a sun ; and the rest, which is fit to 

 compose an opake body, should coalesce, not 

 into one great body, like the shining matter, but 

 into many little ones ; or if the sun at first were 

 an opake body like the planets, or the planets 

 lucid bodies like the sun, how he alone should be 

 changed into a shining body, whilst all they 

 continue opake ; or all they be changed into opake 

 ones, while he continued unchanged : I do not 

 think explicable by mere natural causes, but am 

 forced to ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance 

 of a voluntary Agent." 



