THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION. 15 



dut seeking for it support of any other kind. Some other 

 support I trust yet to bring to it : but in the meantime, 

 assuming its truth, let us see what idea it gives of the 

 constitution of what we term the universe, of the deve- 

 lopment of its various parts, and of its original condition. 



Reverting to a former illustration — if we could suppose 

 a number of persons of various ages presented to the in- 

 § pection of an intelligent being newly introduced into the 

 world, we cannot doubt that he would soon become con- 

 vinced that men had once been boys, that boys had once 

 been infants, and, finally, that all had been brought into 

 the world in exactly the same circumstances. Precisely 

 thus, seeing in our astral system many thousands of worlds 

 in all stages of formation, from the most rudimental to that 

 immediately preceding the present condition of those we 

 deem perfect, it is unavoidable to conclude that all the 

 perfect have gone through the various stages which we 

 see in the rudimental. This leads us at once to the con- 

 clusion that the whole of our firmament was at one time a 

 diffused mass of nebulous matter, extending through the 

 space which it still occupies. So also, of course, must have 

 been the other astral systems. Indeed, we must presume 

 the whole to have been originally in one connected mass, 

 the astral systems being only the first division into parts, 

 and solar systems the second. 



The first idea which all this impresses upon us is, that 

 the formation of bodies in space is still and at present in 

 progress. We live at a time when many have been 

 formed, and many are still forming, Our own solar sys- 

 tem is to be regarded as completed, supposing its per- 

 fection to consist in the formation of a series of planets, 

 for there are mathematical reasons for concluding that 

 Mercury is the nearest planet to the sun, which can, ac- 

 cording to the laws of the system, exist. But there are 

 other solar systems within our astral system, which are 

 as yet in a less advanced state, and even some quantities 

 of nebulous matter which have scarcely begun to advance 

 towards the stellar form. On the other hand, there are 

 vast numbers of stars which have all the appearance of 

 being fully formed systems, if we are ^o judge from the 

 complete and definite appearance which they present 

 to our vision through the telescope. We have no means 

 of judging of the seniority of systems; but it is reasona- 

 ble to suppose that, among tta many, some are older than 



