theory on this subject, which is not supported by any satisfactory proofs. I am left, therefore, to the consideration of the question whether an act of special interposition, in the formation of a plan obviously calling for the exercise of infinite wisdom and power, is in any way inconsistent with the establishment of a system of laws which were to operate on these bodies and among them after they had come to exist. My conclusion, from what I have learned of the solar system, is, that in the exercise by the same being of the method which you call the natural, and the exercise of the method which you call the supernatural, there is no inconsistency; that each of the fixed laws of matter and motion was designed to have its own scope; and that each of them may well consist, within its limitations, with occasional exercises of power, for the production of objects that were to be operated upon by the laws, but of which they were not designed to be the producing cause. Thus it seems to me to be a rational conclusion that the law of gravitation, the general laws of motion, and all the other laws of matter, which preceded the existence of the solar system, were not designed to be the agents by which the plan of that system would be worked out, but that the plan was so formed and executed that the bodies composing it would be subject to the operation of laws enacted by the Infinite Will for the government of all the forms of matter. The question is, whether the plan of the solar system is due to the operation of the fixed laws, or to a special interposition; or, to state it in another way, whether the whole of the phenomena, the plan and arrangement of the solar system included, are to be referred to the operation of certain fixed laws as the producing agents, or whether some part of the phenomena, namely, the mechanism of the system, should be referred to the special interposition. I am taught, by the physics on which astronomers are now agreed, that gravitation is a force by which the particles of matter act on each other; _that every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force varying directly as their masses, and inversely as the square of the distance which separates them_. This I understand to be the formula in which the law of universal gravitation is expressed. But, for the purpose of illustrating what I understand to be the operation of this force, I have constructed a diagram, in which two bodies are represented as A and B. From each of these bodies there radiates in all directions an attracting force, which acts directly upon every other body in the universe, and which is represented in the diagram by dotted lines. In the diagram, the bodies A and B are first supposed to be one thousand miles apart. A certain portion of the attracting rays proceeding from A would strike directly upon B. All the other rays proceeding in the same direction from A would pass on either side of B without striking it.