NATURAL THEOLOGY. 89 



strate. There are also other points of agreement 

 amongst them, which may be considered as marks 

 of the identity of their origin, and of their intelligent 

 Author. In all are found the conveniency and sta- 

 bility derived from gravitation. They all expe- 

 rience vicissitudes of days and nights, and changes 

 of season. They all, at least Jupiter, Mars, and 

 Venus, have the same advantages from their at- 

 mosphere as we have. In all the planets, the axes 

 of rotation are permanent. Nothing is more pro- 

 bable than that the same attracting influence, act- 

 ing according to the same rule, reaches to the fixed 



and liv. xv. c. 1.) Now the same profound geomatrician has 

 shown, in another work, by the calculus of probabilities, that it is 

 above four millions of millions to one in favour of the forty-three 

 motions from west to east, (including rotation as well as revolu- 

 tion and the motions of the sun and of the rings, as well as the 

 planets and satellites,) having been directed by one original or 

 First Cause ; and by the same calculus he has shown the proba- 

 bility of the sun's rising again on the morrow of any given day, 

 to be not much more than 1,800,000 to one, or, in other words, 

 that this event is above two million tiziies less probable than the 

 truth of the position that the motions in our system were designed 

 by one First Cause. This illustrious philosopher has been cen- 

 sured for not drawing in terms the conclusion to which his sub- 

 lime researches, with those of Lagrange, have led the way, and 

 at which he must himself have arrived, — that a Supreme Intel- 

 ligence alone could have formed this magnificent and stable sys- 

 tem. His reason for abstaining from indulging in such contem- 

 plations probably was that his work is purely mathematical, and 

 that this would have been a digression into another science. But 

 the reason is not sufficient, and the omission must ever be lament- 

 ed as a defect in a work so nearly perfect. Mr. Whewell has 

 made some ingenious strictures upon this subject in his able and 

 learned Bridgeicater Treatise, b. iii. c. 5 and 6. 

 9* 



