202 M Bowpoin on Light aud tbe Wafleof Matter E 
reduced to a chaos; from. which it was renovated, and made 
fuitable for the purpofes, to which it has been applied.. 
There is nothing unreafonable, or improbable, in that idea : 
and if the earth was fo renovated,.it may be inferred. from ana-- 
logy,. that in cafe the prefent fyftem fhould go to decay, à new 
one, and perhaps a fuperior one, would arife from its ruins. 
Thefe obfervations-are founded: on. the idea of the wafte of 
the fun’s matter, and its final diffolution, with that of the fyf-. 
tem depending upon it : whether gradually: oceafioned by that 
wafte of matter, or more rapidly brought on by the general law 
of gravitation. In this view of things, the objection does not 
militate with the do&rine.. 
But perhaps it may be thought more philofopliical, and that 
it would better comport.with our ideas of the wifdom of the Cre-. 
‘ator to fuppofe, that when he created the fyftem, he intended it 
fhould be a permanent one ; and at the (ame time furnithed it 
‘with the means of its own. éicdirsatiin:: In. which: cafe, may. 
$t not be further fuppofed, particularly with regard to the efflux 
of light from the fun, by which its matter is -conceived to be- 
"wafted, that he provided means, whereby the effluent particles, . 
after anfwering the purpofe of their efflux, fliould be returned. 
‘to the fun, to anfwer again, in a conftant fueceffion, the fame 
purpofe.- 
I do not know, whether the hypothefis,. fuggefted in the 
following queries, and relative to that fubje@; be admiffible, or 
not. It is however offered for confideration. 
Tt was primarily and {pecially intended to fuggeft a mean for 
preventing the : ruin, to which the material fyftem feems liable 
from the general principle of gravitation : but the fame mean 
may poflbly be ‘applied to reftore to the E ina acp fuc- 
ceffion 
