NEBUIiAR HYPOTHESIS. 



203 



sdge. It lppeared, at the same time, that there was a 

 want in the state of philosophy amongst us, of an impulse 

 in the direction of the consideration of this theory, so as 

 to bring its difficulties the sooner to a bearing in the one 

 way or the other ; and hence it was that I presumed to 

 enter the field. 



My starting-point was a statement of the arrangements 

 of the bodies of space, with a hypothesis respecting the 

 mode in which those arrangements had been effected. It 

 is a mistake to suppose this (nebular) hypothesis essen- 

 tial, as the basis of the entire system of nature developed 

 in my book. That basis lies in the material laws found to 

 prevail throughout the universe, which explain why the 

 masses of space are globular ; why planets revolve round 

 suns in elliptical orbits ; how their rates of speed are high 

 in proportion to their nearness to the centre of attraction, 

 and so forth. In these laws arises the first powerful pre- 

 sumption that the formation and arrangements of the ce- 

 lestial bodies were brought about by the Divine will, act- 

 ing in the manner of a fixed order or law, instead of any 

 mode which we conceive of as more arbitrary. It is a pre- 

 sumption which an enlightened mind is altogether unable 

 to resist, when it sees that precisely similar effects are 

 every day produced by law on a small scale, as when a 

 drop of water spherifies, when the revolving hoop bulges 

 out in the plane of its equator, and the sling, swung round 

 in the hand, increases in speed as the string is shortened. 

 The philosopher, on observing these phenomena, and find- 

 ing incontestible proof that they are precisely of the same 

 nature as those attending the formation and arrangement 

 of worlds, learns his first great lesson — that the natural 

 laws work on the minutest and the grandest scale indiffer- 

 ently ; that, in fact, there is no such thing as great and 

 small in nature, but world spaces are as a hairbreadth, 

 and a thousand years as one day. Having thus all but 

 demonstration that the spheres were formed and arranged 

 by natural law, the nebular hypothesis becomes important, 

 as shadowing forth the process by which matter was so 

 transformed from a previous condition, but it is nothing 

 more ; and, though it were utterly disproved, the evidence 

 which we previously possessed that physical creation, so 

 to speak, was effected by means of, or in the manner of 

 law, would remain exactly as it was. We should onl 

 be left in the dark with regard to the previous condition of 



