Thus the argument which was before urged against those in particular, who put forwards the Nebular Hypothesis in opposition to the admission of an Intelligent Creator, offers itself again, as cogent in itself, when we adopt the opinion of a resisting medium, for which the physical proofs have been found to be so strong. The argument is indeed forced upon our minds, whatever view we take of the past history of the universe. Some have endeavoured to evade its force by maintaining that the world as it now exists has existed from eternity. They assert that the present order of things, or an order of things in some way resembling the present, produced by the same causes, governed by the same laws, has prevailed through an infinite succession of past ages. We shall not dwell upon any objections to this tenet which might be drawn from our own conceptions, or from what may be called metaphysical sources. Nor shall we refer to the various considerations which history, geology, and astronomical records supply, and which tend to show, not only that the past duration of the present course of things is finite, but that it is short, compared with such periods as we have had to speak of. But we may observe, that the doctrine of a resisting medium once established, makes this imagination untenable; compels us to go back to the origin, not only of the present course of the world, not only of the earth, but of the solar system itself; and thus sets us forth upon that path of research into the series of past causation, where we obtain no answer of which the meaning corresponds to our questions, till we rest in the conclusion of a most provident and most powerful Creating Intelligence. It is related of Epicurus that when a boy, reading with his preceptor these verses of Hesiod, Ητοι μεν πρωτιζα Χαος γενετ’, αυταρ επειτα Γαι’ ευρυζερνος παντων εδος ασφαλες αιει Αθανατων, Eldest of beings, Chaos first arose, Thence Earth wide stretched, the steadfast seat of all The Immortals,