42 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



rection ; out of the innumerable angles in which 

 the ball might be sent off, (I mean angles formed 

 with a line drawn in the centre,) none would serve 

 but what was nearly a right one ; out of the vari- 

 ous directions in which the cannon might be point- 

 ed, upwards and downwards, every one would 

 fail, but what was exactly or nearly horizontal. 

 The same thing holds true of the planets : of our 

 own amongst the rest. We are entitled therefore 

 to ask, and to urge the question. Why did the pro- 

 jectile velocity and projectile direction of the earth 

 happen to be nearly those which would retain it 

 in a circular form ? Why not one of the infinite 

 number of velocities, one of the infinite number of 

 directions, which would have made it approach 

 much nearer to, or recede much further from, 

 the sun ? 



The planets going round, all in the same direc- 

 tion, and all nearly in the same plane, aftbrded to 

 Buffon a ground for asserting, that they had all 

 been shivered from the sun by the same stroke of 

 a comet, and by that stroke projected into their 

 present orbits. Now, beside that this is to attri- 

 bute to chance the fortunate concurrence of velo- 

 city and direction which we have been here noti- 

 cing, the h}T^othesis, as I apprehend, is inconsist- 

 ent with the physical laws by which the heavenly 

 motions are governed. If the planets were struck 

 off from the surface of the sun, they would re- 

 turn to the surface of the sun again. Nor will 

 this difficulty be got rid of, by supposing that the 



