212 COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 



ones, do not obtain by any absolute necessity, 

 resembling that which belongs to the properties 

 of geometry. A line touching a circle is neces- 

 sarily perpendicular to a line drawn to the centre 

 through the point touched ; for it may be shown 

 that the contrary involves a contradiction : but 

 there is no contradiction in supposing that a 

 body's motion should naturally diminish, or that 

 its weight should increase in removing further 

 from the earth's centre. 



Thus the properties of matter and the laws of 

 motion are what we find them, not by virtue of 

 any internal necessity which we can understand. 

 The study of such laws and properties may 

 therefore disclose to us the character of that 

 external agency by which we conceive them to 

 have been determined to be what they are ; and 

 this must be the same agency by which all other 

 parts of the constitution of the universe were 

 appointed and ordered. 



But we can hardly expect, with regard to such 

 subjects, that we shall be able to obtain any com- 

 plete or adequate view of the reasons why these 

 general laws are so selected, and so established. 

 These laws are the universal basis of all operations 

 which go on, at any moment, in every part of 

 space, with regard to every particle of matter, 

 organic and inorganic. All other laws and pro- 

 perties must have a reference to these, and must 

 be influenced by them ; both such as men have 

 already discovered, and the far greater number 



