and which everywhere maintains variety and order. Having once emanated from Supreme Wisdom, it presides from the beginning of time, and renders impossible every kind of disorder. Newton and Euler were not acquainted with all the perfection of the universe."

Or, in the words of Laplace himself, "It seems that nature has ordered every thing in the heavens to ensure the duration of the planetary system by views similar to those which she appears to us so admirably to follow upon the earth for the preservation of animals and the perpetuity of species*."

This great discovery has become matter of unmeasured censure to those who were intent upon finding an immediate agency of the Deity in every event; and who were unable to see, that so far from detracting from the evidences of Supreme Intelligence, this recondite provision for the perpetual maintenance, of the order of the universe is, of all others, the most stupendous manifestation of eternal Providence.

Attaching importance, as we before observed, to the supposed necessity for Divine interference, to preserve the regularity of the system, they were of course proportionally offended at the announcement of the principle of physical stability. They were blind to the infinitely higher views thus disclosed.

They have applauded Newton for pointing to an ultimate cause " which is not mechanical," but they * Systéme du Monde, 442.

have been little able to perceive the nature or indications of such a cause. They have looked for the proofs of Omnipotence rather in great changes and sudden interpositions, but have not acknowledged infinite Intelligence in the continual invariable succession of ordinary laws, and the profound adjustment of all the varied trains of physical effects one to another, the preservation of uninterrupted and universal harmony among natural phenomena.

Resisting Medium.

BUT though we find the principle of gravitation thus perfect within itself, and containing a perpetual source of reparation for all disturbances, yet here we must not restrict our speculations to the action of gravitation alone; no part of the universe, no physical principle must be contemplated in an isolated point of view. The consequences of gravitation must not be regarded alone without also considering other causes by which they may be modified; and the disclosure of the high probability that the planetary spaces are filled by a medium inconceivably rare, yet capable, in an immense lapse of time, of sensibly resisting the motions of the planets, opens to our view an extraneous cause which will modify the effects resulting from the action of gravitation alone. The perturbations may be perpetually compensated; but the orbits of all the bodies of the system will, by the resistance of the ethereal

medium, take a gradually more and more compressed form, (as the range of a projectile is narrowed by the resistance of the air,) they will move with increased velocity, continually approach the sun in nearer gyrations, and at length fall into his mass.

The lapse of time which will be necessary to accomplish this is indeed so inconceivably immense, that we might well call the stability of the system perpetual. The probability of such resistance has only been evinced by certain extremely minute effects produced on the orbit of that singular and scarcely material substance, the periodical comet of Encké, a sort of unsubstantial thing, a mere wisp of vapour, which yet obeys the laws of impulse and gravity, and revolves about the sun. The æther then which offers a resistance barely observable to what is little more than an æthereal nebula, it may readily be imagined, has failed to produce any effect on the solid planets capable of being detected, in the entire period since the earliest astronomical observations.

It has, indeed, been contended by some able and philosophical writers, that there are few conclusions of science which so strongly force upon the mind the conviction of a Supreme power as those which refer to the finite nature of all created things; which make the period when the present order of nature did not exist, and predict the time when it shall cease; which point to a beginning and an end. However true and just these views may be with

regard to the origin of the world, I must confess I fail to see their force with respect to the termination. The former unquestionably evinces the arranging and designing will of the Creator; but in the latter, it is difficult to see any such indications, unless, indeed, so far as we may venture upon the strength of the analogies of the past to look forward to a new order of things: to the substitution of a fresh series of recondite adjustments for those which may be destroyed; to the renovation of beauty and order out of decay and destruction; for the evolution of which that destruction may be necessary.

Proportions of Births.

WE may also here cite another example introduced by the illustrious writer last quoted, and in which he uses the term "final cause" in the same sense as before.

"La constance de la superiorité des naissances des garçons sur celles des filles à Paris et à Londres, depuis qu'on les observe, aparu à quelques savans, être une preuve de la Providence sans laquelle ils ont pensé que les causes irréguliers qui troublent sans cesse la marche des événements, aurait du plusieurs fois rendre les naissances annuelles des filles supérieuse a celles des garçons. Mais cette preuve est un nouvel exemple de l'abus que l'on a fait si souvent des causes finales, qui disparaissent toujours par un examen approfondi des questions lorsqu'on a les

données necessaires pour les résondre. La constance dont il s'agit est un résultat des causes régulières*"

or

The slightest consideration will surely render it evident that the author here contrasts "final causes" "Providence" with the idea of "regular causes" and fixed laws; manifestly using the former terms in the sense of "direct intervention." When, however, we take those terms in the sense which we have before endeavoured to elucidate, the whole case is relieved of all difficulty and objection, and we find in those regular laws, and that constant maintenance of a particular proportion, the very proofs and essential notion of Providence and final

causes.

Unexplained Phenomena: Tendency of Philosophical Conjectures.

THE immense extent of our ignorance compared with that of our knowledge, is the reflection which has been only the more powerfully forced upon the minds of philosophers as discovery has advanced; and, in emphatic language, was the dying remark both of Newton and of Laplace. The bearing of this unavoidable confession upon the evidences of natural theology, deserves an attentive consideration.

It has been the favourite course with many inquirers to look anxiously to those parts of nature

* Laplace, Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités, p. 103.