around the sun, and their relations to that central body and to each other, are not the result of any antecedent law which gradually evolved this particular plan, but that the plan itself was primarily designed and executed as one on which the law of gravitation could operate uniformly, and so as to prevent any disturbance in the relations of the different bodies to each other.[105] An illustration will help to make the meaning of this apparent. Let us suppose a human artificer to project the formation of a complex mechanism, in which different solid bodies would be made to revolve around a central body; and let us imagine him to be situated outside of the earth's attraction, so that its attraction would not disturb him. He would then have to consider the law of gravitation only in reference to its operation among the different bodies of his machine; and he would adjust their relative distances, weights, and orbits of revolution around the central body, so that the law of gravitation, instead of producing dislocation and disturbance, would bind the whole together in a fixed system of movement, by counteracting the centrifugal tendency of a revolving body to depart from its intended orbit, and at the same time relying on the effect of the two forces in preventing the revolving bodies from falling into the center or from rushing off into the endless realms of space. This is what may well be supposed to have taken place in the formation of the solar system, for it is consistent with the law which must have preceded the existence of that system. We can not suppose that the law of gravitation was itself a mere result of the relative distances, magnitudes, and orbits of the different bodies. This supposition would make gravitation not a law, but a phenomenon. We do indeed arrive at the existence of the law of gravitation by observing the actions of the bodies which compose the solar system; in other words, we discover the law that holds them together, by observing their actions. But we should entirely reverse the proper process of reasoning, if we were to conclude that the law of gravitation is a phenomenon resulting from an arrangement of certain bodies according to a certain plan. The discoveries of astronomy, on the contrary, should lead us to regard gravitation as a universal law, which existed before the existence of the bodies which have been subjected to it. This is the only way in which our inquirer could reason in regard to the formation of the solar system, whether he supposed its plan to have been a special creation, or to have been evolved out of a nebulous vapor by the operation of the laws of motion or any other laws. Reasoning upon the hypothesis that the law of gravitation existed before there were any bodies for it to operate upon, or, in other words, that it had become in some way an ordained or established principle by which all bodies would be governed, he would have the means of understanding the adaptation of