ruction. The case assumed by Sir John Herschel, of a
cluster, wherein the periods shall be equal, cannot be made to fulfil
the conditions of being very numerous, without infringing the other
condition--the non-intersection of their orbits; while the outside stars
would have to obey another law of gravitation, and consequently would be
still more liable to derangement from their ever-changing distances
from each other, and from those next outside; in brief, the stability of
those stars composing the cluster would necessarily depend on the
existence of outside stars, and plenty of them. But those outside stars
would follow the common law of gravity, and must ultimately bring ruin
on the whole. We know such clusters do exist in the heavens, and that
the law of gravity alone must bring destruction upon them. This is a
case wherein modern science has been instrumental in drawing a veil over
the fair proportions of nature. That such collections of stars are not
designed thus to derange the order of nature, proves _a priori_, that
some other conservative principle must exist; that the medium of space
must contain many vortices--eddies, as it were, in the great ethereal
ocean, whose currents are sweeping along the whole body of stars. We
shall consider, (as a faint shadowing of the glorious empire of
Omnipotence,) that the whole infinite extent of space is full of motion
and power to its farthest verge; and it may be an allowable stretch of
the imagination to conceive that the whole comprises one infinite
cylindrical vortex, whose axis is the only thing in the universe in a
state of absolute unchangeableness.

VORTICOSE MOTION.

Let us for a moment admit the idea of an infinite ocean of fluid matter,
having inertia without gravity, and rotating around an infinite axis, in
this case there is nothing to counteract the effect of the centrifugal
force. The elasticity of the medium would only oppose resistance in a
vortex of finite diameter. Where it is infinite, each cylindrical layer
is urged outward by its own motion, and impelled also by those behind.
The result would be that all the fluid would at last have left the axis,
around which would exist an absolute and eternal void; into which
neither sound, nor light, nor aught material, could enter. The case of
a finite vortex is very different. However great the velocity of
rotation, and the tendency of the central parts to recede from the axis,
there would be an inward current