6 THE BODIES OF SPACE, 



light confers upon mind wherever it is allowed to enter. As- 

 suming, then, the legitimacy of such inquiries, and yet hold- 

 ing by the reverence which Created owes to Creating, we may 

 without fear yield to the instinct which sends us to ask after 

 cause with regard to this vast and beauteous scene. How 

 has it been that these orby myriads have taken the places in 

 which we find them ? To what authorship are we to ascribe 

 the whole ? 



In philosophising, the prime difficulty is to bring down the 

 mind to sufficiently simple conceptions. Many can soar 

 and mystify, and come to nothing ; to few is it given to find 

 truth where it usually lies, amongst the things most familiar. 

 The ideas which the ancients formed of the movements of the 

 heavenly bodies were lofty, but utterly false. It was re- 

 served for the geometers of the last two centuries, by pursuing 

 truth on more solid grounds, to establish the simplicity which 

 is now known to extend through the physical constitution of 

 the universe. It has been fully ascertained that the planets 

 have obtained their forms, keep their places with regard to 

 the sun and to each other, and pursue all their various mo- 

 tions, in obedience to certain laws which are to be every day 

 seen acting on the humblest scale in our very presence. Thus, 

 the earth is a globe for the same reason that a dew-drop is 

 so. It is slightly flattened at the poles, as a consequence of 

 rotation on an axis when in a soft state, for the same reason 

 that a mass of clay whirled rapidly round will become of 

 a similar shape. The sun and earth are mutually attracted 

 in proportion to their respective masses, and inversely as 

 the square of the distance, which is a law prevailing with 

 not less certainty upon two rose leaves floating on the 

 summer lake into which they have fallen. The revolution 

 of the planet or satellite in an orbit round a central mass 

 is, again, the result of a composition of two opposite 

 forces one of them this attraction of gravity in its proper 

 proportions, the other a primitive motion of the one mass 

 away from the other in a straight line ; and this phenomenon 

 is exemplified when we see a stone which has been thrown 

 from a boy's hand, brought in a curve to the ground. All 



