206 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



of the medium will become sensible, this must be 

 allowed to be true, as has been already stated. 

 Millions, and probably millions of millions, of 

 years express inadequately the distance of time 

 at which this cause would produce a serious 

 effect. That the machine of the universe is so 

 constructed that it may answer its purposes for 

 such a period, is surely sufficient proof of the 

 skill of its workmanship, and of the reality of its 

 purpose : and those persons, probably, who are 

 best convinced that it is the work of a wise and 

 good Creator, will be least disposed to consider 

 the system as imperfect, because in its present 

 condition it is not fitted for eternity. 



5. The doctrine of a resisting medium leads 

 us towards a point which the Nebular Hypo- 

 thesis assumes; a beginning of the present 

 order of things. There must have been a com- 

 mencement of the motions now going on in the 

 solar system. Since these motions, when once 

 begun, would be deranged and destroyed in a 

 period which, however large, is yet finite, it is 

 obvious we cannot carry their origin indefinitely 

 backwards in the range of past duration. There 

 is a period in which these revolutions, whenever 

 they had begun, would have brought the revolv- 

 ing bodies into contact with the central mass; 

 and this period has in our system not yet elapsed. 

 The watch is still going, and therefore it must 

 have been wound up within a limited time. 



The solar system, at this its beginning, must 



