44 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



its rotation about the mass till the oscillations to which it 

 was subjected produced a rupture, when the whole mate- 

 rial of the ring gathered itself together in another globe of 

 igneous vapor revolving around the first. 



In progress of time the principal mass, under the influ- 

 ence of inevitable refrigeration and acceleration of its mo- 

 tion, threw off another ring, which, on rupturing, became 

 another revolving globe. From time to time the process 

 was repeated ; and a series of globes was thus left at vary- 

 ing distances from the centre of the system. These globes 

 became the planets, and the residual mass is the sun. We 

 come into existence, and gaze upon the series of planets, on 

 one hand, and the sun upon the other, and think, because 

 no perceptible change transpires in a generation or two, 

 that all things are stable — that creation is completed — that 

 all things were made at first as we see them, and are des- 

 tined so to remain. Vain thought ! The movements of 

 matter are even now in progress. The residual mass — the 

 sun — is still cooling and shrinking, and may yet throw off 

 other rings, the germs of other planets within the orbit of 

 Mercury — if, indeed, Lescarbault be not correct in assert- 

 ing the existence already of an intramercurial planet. 



But what of the detached globes of matter? The largest 

 are the remoter, being formed of rings detached when the 

 parent mass was largest. Each has continued to revolve 

 in an orbit which marks the periphery of the parent mass 

 at the time of the planet's separation. All continue to re- 

 volve in the same direction as the parent mass and the re- 

 sultant sun. All revolve very nearly in the plane which 

 must always have been the plane of the equator of the 

 mass — the astronomical ecliptic. All continue to revolve 

 upon their own axes in the same direction as required by 

 the motion of the parent mass. Can all these things be so 

 by chance ? Can these planetary movements thus corre- 



