36 



THE BODIES OF SPACE 



ours. There is, indeed, one piece of evidence for th* 

 probability of the cornparitive youth of our system, alto- 

 gether apart fyom human traditions and the geognostic 

 appearances of the surface of our planet. This consists 

 in a thin nebulous matter, which is diffused around the 

 sun to nearly the orbit of Mercury, of a very oblately 

 spheroidal shape. 



This matter, which sometimes appears to our naked 

 eyes, at sunset, in the form of a cone projecting upwards 

 in the line of the sun's path, and which bears the name 

 of Zodiacal Light, has been thought a residuum or last 

 remnant of the concentrating matter of our system, and 

 thus may be supposed to indicate the comparative reeent- 

 ness of the principal events of our cosmogony. Suppos- 

 ing the surmise and inference to be correct, and they 

 may be held as so far supported by more familiar evidence, 

 we might with the more confidence speak of our system 

 as not amongst the eider born of Heaven, but one whose 

 various phenomena, physical and moral, as yet lay unde- 

 veloped, while myriads of others I were fully fashioned, 

 and in complete arrangement. Thus, in the sublime 

 chronology to which we are directing our inquiries, we 

 first find ourselves called upon to consider the globe 

 which we inhabit as a child of the sun, elder than Venus 

 and her younger brother Mercury, but posterior in date 

 of birth to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus ; next to 

 regard our whole system as probably of recent formation 

 in comparison with many of the stars of our firmament. 

 We must, however, be on our guard against supposing 

 the earth as a recent globe in our ordinary conceptions 

 of time. From evidence afterwards to be adduced, it wU3 

 be seen that it cannot be presumed to be less than many 

 hundreds of centuries old. How much older Uranus may 

 be, no one can tell, far less how much more aged may be 

 many of the stars of our firmament, or the stars of other 

 firmaments than ours. 



Another and more important consideration arises from 

 the hypothesis; namely, as to the means by which the 

 grand process is conducted. The nebulous matter col- 

 lects around nuclei by virtue of the law of attraction. 

 The agglomeration brings into operation another physical 

 law, by force of which the separate masses of matter are 

 either made to rotate singly, or, in addition to that single 

 motion, are set into a coupled revolution in ellipses. Next 



