th the most ingenious and truly
philosophical speculation ever hazarded respecting the origin of our
solar system. I refer to the cosmical hypothesis of La Place, which
was certainly formed without any reference to the Bible; and by
persons whose views of the Mosaic narrative are of that shallow
character which is too prevalent, has been suspected as of infidel
tendency. La Place's theory is based on the following properties of
the solar system, which will be found referred to in this connection
in many popular works on astronomy: 1. The orbits of the planets are
nearly circular. 2. They revolve nearly in the plane of the sun's
equator.[43] 3. They all revolve round the sun in one direction, which
is also the direction of the sun's rotation. 4. They rotate on their
axes also, as far as is known, in the same direction. 5. Their
satellites, with the exception of those of Uranus and Neptune, revolve
in the same direction. Now all these coincidences can scarcely have
been fortuitous, and yet they might have been otherwise without
affecting the working of the system; and, farther, if not fortuitous,
they correspond precisely with the results which would flow from the
condensation of a revolving mass of nebulous matter. La Place,
therefore, conceived that in the beginning the matter of our system
existed in the condition of a mass of vaporous material, having a
central nucleus more or less dense, and the whole rotating in a
uniform direction. Such a mass must, "in condensing by cold, leave in
the plane of its equator zones of vapor composed of substances which
required an intense degree of cold to return to a liquid or solid
state. These zones must have begun by circulating round the sun in the
form of concentric rings, the most volatile molecules of which must
have formed the superior part, and the most condensed the inferior
part. If all the nebulous molecules of which these rings are composed
had continued to cool without disuniting, they would have ended by
forming a liquid or solid ring. But the regular constitution which all
parts of the ring would require for this, and which they would have
needed to preserve when cooling, would make this phenomenon extremely
rare. Accordingly the solar system presents only one instance of
it--that of the rings of Saturn. Generally the ring must have broken
into several parts which have continued to circulate round the sun,
and with almost equal velocity, while at the same time, in cons