Rough Notes on the controversy against Geologists. 493 



in a planetary system brought into shape by the working of 

 the powers impressed upon matter by the Creator, and by 

 the operation of which, he still governs and upholds the 

 universe in its admirable order and beauty. 



The creation of the sun, at this time, seems to have had 

 immense influence upon the condition of the earth. Thence- 

 forth the sun was to it the source of light and heat, its own 

 luminous atmosphere appearing to have left it, and to have 

 been, along with all the other permanently luminous and 

 calorific matter of the nebula, attracted to that great centre 

 of the system. This may be supposed to have happened 

 through some action unknown to man, remotely analogous to 

 that by which the subtile fluid, proved to be the source of 

 electricity, galvanism, magnetism, and thermo-electricity, and 

 on good grounds, thought to be the cause of heat and light, 

 appears as heat and light, at the connecting series, poles, or 

 electrodes of a galvanic battery, and in that part only of the 

 circuit along which it passes. Thus the sensible energy is 

 exerted at the sun alone, though the invisible cause of this 

 circulates alike, but unperceived, through the whole of the 

 planetary worlds which are his dependents, and the interme- 

 diate space by which these are surrounded. Or, the change 

 may be supposed to have arisen more probably and simply 

 by the cooling down of the luminous matter around the earth, 

 whether that matter which had previously enlightened the 

 earth was attached to itself, or was a more remote portion 

 of the generally luminous and heated nebula, to a point 

 below that at which it was luminous and calorific, and from 

 a consequent absorption of the matter of the light and heat 

 into a combination with other matter ; from which it may 

 still be eliminated at pleasure, by the means for producing 

 artificial light and heat. In this case, the present darkness 

 of all the planetary bodies, and the luminosity and heating 

 power of the sun, may be looked on as in strict analogy with 

 what happens in regard to heated bodies upon the earth. 



