The harmony of the solar system in all its phenomena does not depend upon the operation of any _one_ law, but from the special adjustment of several laws. There are certain agents operating throughout the entire system which have different properties, and which require special adjustment to each other, in order to their beneficial operation. 1st. There is _Gravitation,_ prevailing apparently through all space. But it does not prevail alone. It is a force whose function is to balance other forces of which we know little, except that these, again, are needed to balance the force of gravitation. Each force, if left to itself, would be the destruction of the universe. Were it not for the force of gravitation, the centrifugal forces which impel the planets would fling them off into space. Were it not for these centrifugal forces, the force of gravitation would dash them against the sun. The ultimate fact of astronomical science, therefore, is not the law of gravitation, but the _adjustment_ between this law and other laws, so as to produce and maintain the existing order.[264] 2d. There is _Light_, flowing from numberless luminaries; and _Heat_, radiating everywhere from the warmer to the colder regions; and there are a number of adjustments needed in order to the beneficial operation of these agents. Suppose we grant that by merely mechanical causes the sun became the centre of our system, how did it become also the _source of its vivifying influences_? "How was the fire deposited on this hearth? How was the candle placed on this candlestick?" 3d. There is an all-pervading _Ether_, through which light is transmitted, which offers resistance to the movement of the planetary and cometary bodies, and tends to a dissipation of mechanical energy, and which needs to be counter-balanced by well-adjusted arrangements to secure the stability of the solar system. All this balancing of opposite properties and forces carries our minds upward towards Him who holds the balances in his hands, and to a Supreme Intelligence on whose adjustments and collocations the harmony and stability of the universe depends.[265] [Footnote 264: Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," pp. 91, 92.] [Footnote 265: M'Cosh, "Typical Forms and Special Ends," ch. xiii.]