present, and the future. No inattention prevents Him from observing; no defect of memory or of judgement obscures His comprehension. In His remembrance, are stored not only the transactions of this world, but of all the worlds in the universe ;-not only the events of the six thousand years which have passed since the earth was created, but of a duration without beginning. Nay, things to come, extending to a duration without end, are also before Him. An eternity past, and an eternity to come, are, at the same moment, in His eye; and with that eternal eye, He surveys infinity. How amazing! How inconceivable !

But while we thus do homage to the perfections of the Eternal, let us not undervalue the studies by which these perfections are elucidated. Though, when compared with the Divine mind, the mind even of a Newton must sink into utter insignificance; yet, to feeble man, it is great, it is admirable,-to have removed the veil which lay on the face of Nature;-to have pierced, with keen glance, to the suns of other systems, and to have known the law, so simple and so sublime, by which the beauty, order, and harmony of the universe, are sustained. By enlarging our views of Nature, the philosopher enlarges our conceptions of Nature's God. He throws new light on the power, the wisdom, and the infinity of the Creator; and this is well: but it is not enough. Without a higher principle, his knowledge is ignorance; his wisdom is folly; his light is darkness. Every discovery which extends our conceptions of the Divine power, while it hides from our view the beauty and grace of his paternal character, only places man at a more awful distance from his Maker, and surrounds the throne of the Eternal with new terrors, till, in the full blaze of the Godhead, the corrupted child of earth shrinks,—is consumed, is annihilated!

O! how unspeakably more cheering and glorious,how infinitely better adapted to our condition and our wants, would be a simple message from the unseen world, intimating favor to the sinful and perishing race of Adam. And that message has been sent! The Almighty has

broken the silence of Nature, and sent that message by his own Son.

FIFTH WEEK-MONDAY.

VII. THE STARRY HEAVENS.-THE SATELLITES.

We have considered the arrangements of the planetary system, in reference to its stability, and to the diffusion of light and heat; but there is a contrivance of a different kind, which seems to require a slight notice. The existence of satellites, or secondary planets, as they are called, is a striking concomitant of the system. These smaller bodies attend the primary planets in their course round the sun, partaking of their motion, and at the same time wheeling round them, in an orbit of their own, at greater or less distances. Now, it has been remarked, that, speaking generally, these moons are bestowed as attendants on the planets, in some relation to their distance from the sun, increasing in number in proportion as we recede from that luminary. The inferior planets, that is, those that are nearer the sun than our earth, have none. The earth has one; Jupiter, which is five times more distant from the sun than our planet, has four; Saturn, which nearly doubles the distance of Jupiter, has seven, besides the curious anomaly of a ring; Uranus is known to have five, and may, in all probability, have many more, which the extreme remoteness of his situation, at the distance of one billion eighteen hundred and thirteen millions of miles, may well render invisible, even with the use of our best instruments. Supposing, how

ever, that this is the case, there are still exceptions to the rule of increase. Mars, and the four other planetary bodies which are stationed between the Earth and Jupiter, have no attendants. As to the ultra-zodiacal planets, the peculiarity of their condition might lead us to expect this deviation; and though it may be more diffi

cult to account for the want of an attendant in the case of Mars, there are few who, on this account, will withhold their assent to the truth of the general observation.

What purpose, then, do these secondary planets serve? This question has been well answered by Mr. Whewell, in reference to our own moon, and in refutation of the skeptical doubts of Laplace. "A person of ordinary feelings," observes this sound philosopher, "who, on a fine moonlight night, sees our satellite pouring her mild radiance on field and town, path and moor, will, probably, not only be disposed to bless the useful light,' but also to believe that it was ordained for that purpose; that the lesser light was made to rule the night, as certainly as the greater light was made to rule the day.

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Laplace, however, does not assent to this belief. He observes, that'some partisans of final causes have imagined that the moon was given to the earth to afford light during the night;' but he remarks that this cannot be so, for that we are often deprived at the same time of the light of the sun and of the moon, and he points out how the moon might have been placed so as to be always 'full.'

“That the light of the moon affords, to a certain extent, a supplement to the light of the sun, will hardly be denied. If we take man in a condition in which he uses artificial light scantily only, or not at all, there can be no doubt that the moonlight nights are for him a very important addition to the time of daylight. And, as a small proportion, only, of the whole number of nights are without some portion of moonlight, the fact, that sometimes both luminaries are invisible, very little diminishes the value of this advantage. Why we have not more moonlight, either in duration or in quantity, is an inquiry, which a philosopher could hardly be tempted to enter upon by any success which has attended previous speculations of a similar nature. Why should not the moon be ten times as large as she is? Why should not the pupil of a man's eye be ten times as large as it is, so as to receive more of the light which does arrive? We do not conceive, that our inability to answer the latter ques

tion, prevents our knowing that the eye was made for seeing; nor does our inability to answer the former, disturb our persuasion, that the moon was made to give light upon the earth.”*

To show that the light derived from the moon exhibits no proof of an Intelligent Cause, Laplace undertakes to suggest a better arrangement himself, and points out a position of that luminary, which would always cause her to appear full to the inhabitants of the earth. Mr. Whewell answers this suggestion by proving, that such a position could only be found by placing the moon four times farther from us than she is at present, which would diminish her apparent size no less than sixteen times, and, of course, proportionally diminish her light. Whether or not this arrangement would be preferable to the present, may well be doubted; but even if its superiority could be demonstrated, it seems doubtful if the influence of the disturbing forces, which, on such a supposition, would certainly act more powerfully, would suffer the arrangement to be stable.

But, even allowing the full force to Laplace's objection, which the validity of his suggestion could with any show of reason afford, it amounts, after all, just to this, that the provision thus made for the comfort and happiness of living creatures, and especially of man, is mingled with imperfection and privation. Is not this, however, the precise character which is inscribed on all sublunary things? and does not the analogy which we here discover, serve to confirm the very view of the Divine perfections, as exhibited in his works, with reference to the moral government of the human race, which I have been endeavoring all along to establish? This is a checkered scene of brightness and gloom, of sunshine and shade, of enjoyment and depression; and such is the discipline best suited to our fallen condition.

In turning from our own satellite to those of the other planets, a similar train of reasoning may be applied. These nightly luminaries, attached to Jupiter, Saturn,

*Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 174.

and Uranus, certainly compensate, in some degree, by their numbers, for the increased deficiency of light arising from the remoteness of their primaries from the sun. This view will not be successfully redargued by the fact already stated, that Mars, and the four small planets, still more distant than he from the source of light, are destitute of these useful appendages. The answer to such an objection just is, that, according to the analogy of creation, we may expect exceptions for which we may be altogether incapable of assigning an adequate cause; but the ignorance inherent in our limited views, can never invalidate the evidence of facts and principles clearly established.

FIFTH WEEK-TUESDAY.

VIII. THE STARRY HEAVENS.-RELATIVE PROPORTIONS OF

THE PLANETARY SYSTEM.

BEFORE Concluding our remarks on the system with which we are more immediately connected, it may be useful to take a general survey of the whole, in its relative proportions, that we may be enabled to form to ourselves some idea of the enormous scale on which even our comparatively diminutive department of the universe is constructed. It is exceedingly difficult for the mind to compare very great things with each other; because, beyond a certain point, all proportions seem to be lost in a kind of undefined immensity. We are commonly conversant with things on so minute a scale, being ourselves mere atoms, as it were, of a little planet, that it requires an effort to raise our thoughts to so vast a subject; and, in contemplating it, we are, at every step, forced to feel the inadequacy of our own powers of comprehension. It is reported of some savages, that the scantiness and trifling nature of the objects which occupy their attention, have so contracted their faculty of estimating quantities,