This hypothesis concerning the origin of the planets, contrived chiefly to account for the circumstance of their motion being all in the same direction, and in other respects not only unsupported, but even inconsistent with the principle of gravitation, has nothing in common with a theory, confined as Dr Hutton's is, within the field which must for ever bound our inquiries, and not venturing to speculate about the earth, when in a condition totally different from the present. 427. In what relates to the future, the two systems are not more like than in what relates to the past Buffon represents the cooling of our planet, and its loss of heat, as a process continually advancing, and which has no limit, but the final extinction of life and motion over all the surface, and through all the interior, of the earth. The death of nature herself is the distant but gloomy object that terminates our view, and reminds us of the wild fictions of the Scandinavian mythology, according to which, _annihilation_ is at last to extend its empire even to the gods. This dismal and unphilosophic vision was unworthy of the genius of Buffon, and wonderfully ill suited to the elegance and extent of his understanding. It forms a complete contrast to the theory of Dr Hutton, where nothing is to be seen beyond the continuation of the present order; where no latent seed of evil threatens final destruction to the whole; and where the movements are so perfect, that they can never terminate of themselves. This is surely a view of the world more suited to the dignity of NATURE, and the wisdom of its AUTHOR, than has yet been offered by any other system of cosmology. 428. I have often quoted Buffon in, the course of these _Illustrations_, and most commonly for the purpose of combating his opinions; but I am very sensible, nevertheless, of the obligations under which he has laid all the sciences connected with the natural history of the earth.