"The six primary planets are revolved about the sun in circles concentric with the sun, and with motions directed toward the same parts, and almost in the same plane. Ten moons are revolved about the earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, in circles concentric with them, with the same direction of motion, and nearly in the planes of the orbits of those planets; but it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions, since the comets range over all parts of the heavens in very eccentric orbits; for by that kind of motion they pass easily through the orbits of the planets, and with great rapidity; and in their aphelions, where they move the slowest, and are detained the longest, they recede to the greatest distances from each other, and thence suffer the least disturbance from their mutual attractions. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centers of other like systems, these being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems; and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems at immense distances one from another." FOOTNOTES: [105] The reader will understand that I do not assert this to be what astronomers teach, but I maintain it to be a rational deduction from the facts which they furnish to us. CHAPTER IX. Does evolution account for the phenomena of society and of nature?--Necessity for a conception of a personal actor--Mr. Spencer's protoplasmic origin of all organic life--The Mosaic account of creation treated as a hypothesis which may be scientifically contrasted with evolution. A long interval has elapsed since the conference described in the last chapter, between the searcher after wisdom and his scientific friend. At their next interview they take up the subject of a First Cause where they left it at the conclusion of their debate on the solar system. KOSMICOS. Well, Sophereus, what have you been studying since we last met? SOPHEREUS. Many things. I have been studying what is commonly called Nature, and I have been studying society. With regard to society, I have been endeavoring to discover to what the phenomena of social life are to be attributed as their producing cause or causes; whether they can be said to owe their existence to the direct action or influence of intelligent wills, or are to be considered as effects produced in the course of an ungoverned development, wrought by incidental forces in varying conditions of human existence. The latter, I find, is one of the theories now prevailing. KOSMICOS. And what is your conclusion?