24 SPECIAL RESULTS OF OBSERVATION IN THE DOMAIN 



and of the order and proportion s, seemingly not reducible to 

 any laws, of the magnitudes, densities, inclinations of axis, 

 and eccentricities of orbit of the planets, the numbers and 

 distances of their satellites, the form of continents, and the 

 position of their loftiest mountain chains. All these cir- 

 cumstances (having reference to space geographical or celes- 

 tial), which are here instanced merely as examples, can as 

 yet only be regarded as natural facts, of which we know the 

 existence but not the explanation. But although neither 

 the causes nor the connection of these facts are yet known 

 to us, I (Jo not therefore term them in any sense accidental. 

 They are doubtless the results of events or occurrences in 

 space at the time of the formation of our planetary system, 

 and of geological phenomena which accompanied or pre- 

 ceded the elevation of the outermost strata of our globe 

 into continents and mountain chains. Our knowledge of 

 the early period of the physical history of the Universe does 

 not reach back far enough to enable us to describe that 

 which exists in its process of formation. ( 44 ) 



But although it has not yet been possible in all cases 

 fully to recognise the causal connection between phenomena, 

 no part of the domain of the natural sciences can be ex- 

 cluded from the study of the Cosmos, or the physical de- 

 scription of the Universe. Bather that study comprehends 

 the whole of such domain, the phenomena of both spheres, 

 celestial and telluric ; but it does so only under the single 

 point of view of the tendency towards the recognition 

 of the Universe as a Whole. ( 45 ) As, in the description 

 of what has taken place in the moral and political 

 sphere, the historian ( 46 ) cannot directly discern, accord- 

 ing to man's view, the plan of the government of the world, 



