Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation | Page 7

round the central body by means of a composition between the centrifugal and gravitating forces. All, we see, is done by certain laws of matter, so that it becomes a question of extreme interest, what are such laws? All that can yet be said, in answer, is, that we see certain natural events proceeding in an invariable order under certain conditions, and thence infer the existence of some fundamental arrangement which, for the bringing about of these events, has a force and certainty of action similar to, but more precise and unerring than those arrangements which human society makes for its own benefit, and calls laws. It is remarkable of physical laws, that we see them operating on every kind of scale as to magnitude, with the same regularity and perseverance. The tear that falls from childhood's cheek is globular, through the efficacy of that same law of mutual attraction of particles which made the sun and planets round. The rapidity of Mercury is quicker than that of Saturn, for the same reason that, when we wheel a ball round by a string and make the string wind up round our fingers, the ball always flies quicker and quicker as the string is shortened. Two eddies in a stream, as has been stated, fall into a mutual revolution at the distance of a couple of inches, through the same cause which makes a pair of suns link in mutual revolution at the distance of millions of miles. There is, we might say, a sublime simplicity in this indifference of the grand regulations to the vastness or minuteness of the field of their operation. Their being uniform, too, throughout space, as far as we can scan it, and their being so unfailing in their tendency to operate, so that only the proper conditions are presented, afford to our minds matter for the gravest consideration. Nor should it escape our careful notice that the regulations on which all the laws of matter operate, are established on a rigidly accurate mathematical basis. Proportions of numbers and geometrical figures rest at the bottom of the whole. All these considerations, when the mind is thoroughly prepared for them, tend to raise our ideas with respect to the character of physical laws, even though we do not go a single step further in the investigation. But it is impossible for an intelligent mind to stop there. We advance from law to the cause of law, and ask, What is that? Whence have come all these beautiful regulations? Here science leaves us, but only to conclude, from other grounds, that there is a First Cause to which all others are secondary and ministrative, a primitive almighty will, of which these laws are merely the mandates. That great Being, who shall say where is his dwelling-place, or what his history! Man pauses breathless at the contemplation of a subject so much above his finite faculties, and only can wonder and adore!

CONSTITUENT MATERIALS OF THE EARTH AND OF THE OTHER BODIES OF SPACE.

The nebular hypothesis almost necessarily supposes matter to have originally formed one mass. We have seen that the same physical laws preside over the whole. Are we also to presume that the constitution of the whole was uniform?--that is to say, that the whole consisted of similar elements. It seems difficult to avoid coming to this conclusion, at least under the qualification that, possibly, various bodies, under peculiar circumstances attending their formation, may contain elements which are wanting, and lack some which are present in others, or that some may entirely consist of elements in which others are entirely deficient.
What are elements? This is a term applied by the chemist to a certain limited number of substances, (fifty-four or fifty-five are ascertained,) which, in their combinations, form all the matters of every kind present in and about our globe. They are called elements, or simple substances, because it has hitherto been found impossible to reduce them into others, wherefore they are presumed to be the primary bases of all matters. It has, indeed, been surmised that these so-called elements are only modifications of a primordial form of matter, brought about under certain conditions; but if this should prove to be the case, it would little affect the view which we are taking of cosmical arrangements. Analogy would lead us to conclude that the combinations of the primordial matter, forming our so-called elements, are as universal or as liable to take place everywhere as are the laws of gravitation and centrifugal force. We must therefore presume that the gases, the metals, the earths, and other simple substances, (besides whatever more of which we have no acquaintance,) exist or are liable to come into existence under proper conditions, as well in the astral system, which is thirty-five thousand times