NATURAL THEOLOGY. 33 



these limits bear so small a proportion to the 

 range of possibilities upon which chance might 

 equally have cast it, is not, with any appearance 

 of reason, to be accounted for, by any other cause 

 than a regulation proceeding from a designing 

 mind. But our next proposition carries the mat- 

 ter somewhat further. We say, in the third place, 

 that, out of the different laws which lie within the 

 limits of admissible laws, the best is made choice 

 of; that there are advantages in this particular 

 law which cannot be demonstrated to belong to 

 any other law ; and, concerning some of which, it 

 can be demonstrated that they do not belong to 

 any other. 



(*) 1. Whilst this law prevails between each 

 particle of matter, the united attraction of a sphere 

 composed of that matter, observes the same law. 

 This property of the law is necessary to render it 

 applicable to a system composed of spheres, but 

 it is a property w^hich belongs to no other law of 

 attraction that is admissible. The law of varia- 

 tion of the united attraction is in no other case 

 the same as the law of attraction of each particle, 

 one case excepted, and that is of the attraction 

 varying directly as the distance ; the inconve- 

 niency of which law, in other respects, we have 

 already noticed. 



We may follow this regulation somewhat fur- 

 ther, and still more strikingly perceive that it pro- 

 ceeded from a designing mind. A law both ad-> 



