the earth as a recent globe in our ordinary conceptions of time.
From evidence afterwards to be adduced, it will be seen that it
cannot be presumed to be less than many hundreds of centuries old.
How much older Uranus may be no one can tell, much less how more aged
may be many of the stars of our firmament, or the stars of other
firmaments than ours.

Another and more important consideration arises from the hypothesis;
namely, as to the means by which the grand process is conducted. The
nebulous matter collects around nuclei by virtue of the law of
attraction. The agglomeration brings into operation another physical
law, by force of which the separate masses of matter are either made
to rotate singly, or, in addition to that single motion, are set into
a coupled revolution in ellipses. Next centrifugal force comes into
play, flinging off portions of the rotating masses, which become
spheres by virtue of the same law of attraction, and are held in
orbits of revolution round the central body by means of a composition
between the centrifugal and gravitating forces. All, we see, is done
by certain laws of matter, so that it becomes a question of extreme
interest, what are such laws? All that can yet be said, in answer,
is, that we see certain natural events proceeding in an invariable
order under certain conditions, and thence infer the existence of
some fundamental arrangement which, for the bringing about of these
events, has a force and certainty of action similar to, but more
precise and unerring than those arrangements which human society
makes for its own benefit, and calls laws. It is remarkable of
physical laws, that we see them operating on every kind of scale as
to magnitude, with the same regularity and perseverance. The tear
that falls from childhood's cheek is globular, through the efficacy
of that same law of mutual attraction of particles which made the sun