Did Hooker suppose that heaven is "an arch," which could be "loosened and dissolved?" or that "the way" of the moon is "beaten?"--But this is a highly poetical passage, written three centuries ago.--Let an unexceptionable witness then be called; and so, let the question be brought to definite issue. _I_, for my part, am quite content that it shall be _the philosopher in person_. The present Essayist shall be heard discoursing about Creation, and shall be convicted out of his own mouth. Mr. Goodwin begins his paper by a kind of cosmogony of his own, which he prefaces with the following apology:--"It will be necessary for our purpose to go over the oft-trodden ground, which must be done with rapid steps. Nor let the reader object to be reminded of some of the most elementary facts of his knowledge. The human race has been ages in arriving at conclusions now familiar to every child." (p. 212.) After this preamble, he begins his "elementary facts," as follows:-- "This Earth, apparently so still and stedfast, lying in majestic repose beneath the ætherial vault,"--(p. 212.) But we remonstrate immediately. "The ætherial _vault_!" Do you then understand the sky, firmament, or heaven to be "a permanent solid vault, as it appears to the ordinary observer?" (p. 220.) "The Sun which seems to leap up each morning from the east, and traversing the skyey bridge,"--(p. 212.) "The _skyey bridge_!" And pray in what part of the universe do you discover a "skyey bridge?" Is not _this_ calculated "to convey to ordinary apprehensions an impression at variance with facts?" (p. 231.) "The Moon which occupies a position in the visible heavens only second to the Sun, and far beyond that of every other celestial body in conspicuousness,"--(p. 212.) Nay, but really Mr. Philosopher, while you remind us "of some of the most elementary facts of our knowledge," (p. 212,) you write (except in the matter of the "leaping Sun" and the "skyey bridge,")--_exactly as Moses does_ in the first chapter of Genesis! What else does that great Prophet say but that "the Moon occupies a position in the visible heavens only second to the Sun, and far beyond that of every other celestial body in conspicuousness?" (p. 212.)