A MATERIAL WORLD. 



33 



surpass our reach ; till at length we resign ourselves to imagination, and in 

 the confusion of our thoughts and the weakness of our language, we speak 

 of space as being filled, and of matter as being infinite. 



This view of the subject has given rise to a variety of magnificent specu- 

 lations, at which I shall just glance, without meaning to dwell upon them. Is 

 all this immensity of matter, this universe of worlds within worlds, and sys- 

 tems within systems, the result of one single fiat of the great Creator 1 Did 

 the Power that spake it into existence give it from the first the general order 

 and harmony and perfection that prevail at present 1 or did he merely produce 

 a vast central and aggregate chaos, as the rude basis of future worlds, the 

 parent-stock or storehouse from which they have since issued by a series of 

 distinct efforts and evolutions 1 or, thirdly, has every separate system of 

 worlds, or every separate planet, been the result of a separate birth, and a 

 separate act of creation ? 



It is of little importance which of these splendid fancies we adopt ; for all 

 of them are but fancies, and built upon conjecture alone. In a course of 

 philosophical inquiry, however, it becomes us to be acquainted with their ex- 

 istence ; and to be informed, beyond this, that the second is the speculation 

 which has been more generally espoused by philosophers ; that, I mean, 

 which conceives the existence of a central and primary chaos, from which 

 all the heavenly bodies have successively proceeded, of whatever kind or 

 description, whether suns, stars, comets, or planets ; though the mode by 

 which such efforts have been produced has been variously accounted for. Des 

 Cartes seems to have supposed stars to have preceded planets in the order of 

 creation ; and that the earth was at first a star, and continued so till rendered 

 opaque by having its bright surface incrusted with grosser and untransparent 

 matter, and drawn into the vortex of the solar system ; and Leibnitz adopted 

 his conjecture. Whiston conceived it to have been originally a comet, the 

 rude materials of which constituted the chaos of the earth ; and BuflTon, to 

 have consisted of a comet and a portion of the sun's exterior limb or edge 

 carried oflf by such comet, in consequence of its having given the sun an 

 oblique stroke in the course of its orbit ; the chaos of the earth being thus 

 formed by the vapoury substance of the impinging comet uniting with a por- 

 tion of the sun's igneous mass ; and in this manner he endeavoured to account 

 for the production of every other planet of the solar system. 



Rut of all this class of speculations (for assuredly they deserve no higher 

 character), the most splendid and comprehensive is that which was first em- 

 braced by Dr. Ilerschel, and was perhaps an improvement on a prior hypo- 

 thesis of M. Buffon ; but which, so precarious is the life of a philosophical 

 hypothesis, he himself discarded, not many years afterward, for something 

 newer. It supposes the existence of an immense mass of opaque but igneous 

 matter, seated in the centre of universal nature ; that the sun and every other 

 star were originally portions of this common substance ; that it is volcanic 

 in its structure, and subject to eruptions of inconceivable force and violence ; 

 that the sun and every other luminary of every other system were thrown forth 

 from it at different times, by the operation of such projectile powers ; and 

 that these, possessing in a great degree the qualities of the parent body, threw 

 forth afterward at different times, by means of similar volcanoes, port-ions 

 of their own substance, each of which, by the common laws of projectiles, 

 assumed an orbicular motion, constituted a distinct planet, and became the 

 chaos of a rising world.* Hence, according to this comprehensive and daring 

 hypothesis, the existing universe has acquired its birth; hence new systems 

 of worlds are perpetually rising into being, and new planets are added to sys- 

 tems already created. 



But worlds and systems of worlds are not only perpetually creating, they 

 are also perpetually diminishing and disappearing. It is an extraordinary 

 fact, that within the period of the last century, not less than thirteen stars in 

 different constellations, none of them below the sixth magnitude, seem totally 



* Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxxiv. 



c 



