the sun, must be smallest; because, were they greater,
or equal, they would, by reason of their velocity, have a greater
centrifugal force, and recede from the centre. If it should happen that
any of these sun-like bodies, in the centres of the several vortices,
should be so in-crusted and weakened, as to be carried about in the
vortex of the true sun: if it were of less solidity, or had less motion
than the globules towards the extremity of the solar vortex, it would
descend towards the sun, till it met with globules of the same solidity,
and susceptible of the same degree of motion with itself* and thus,
being fixed there, it would be for ever after carried about by the
motion of the vortex, without either approaching any nearer to, or
receding from the sun, and so become a planet. Supposing, then, all
this, we are next to imagine that our system was at first divided into
several vortices, in the centre of each of which was a lucid spherical
body; and that some of these being gradually incrustated, were swallowed
up by others which were larger, and more powerful, till at last they
were all destroyed and swallowed up by the biggest solar vortex,
except some few which were thrown off in right lines from one vortex to
another, and so became comets. It should also be added, that in addition
to the two elements mentioned above, those particles which may yet
exist, and be only in the course of reduction to their globular form an
it still retain their angular proportions, form a third element.

This theory has found many opponents; but in this state of our work
we conceive our duty to be that of giving a simple narrative of the
philosopher's ideas, rather than a history of the various criticisms
upon those ideas, the more especially as our pages scarcely afford room
for such a mode of treatment.

Having formed his method, Des Cartes proceeded to apply it. The basis
of certitude being consciousness, he interrogated his consciousness, and
found that he had an idea of a substance infinite, eternal, immutable,
independent, omniscient, omnipotent. This he called an idea of God:
he said, "I exist as a miserably imperfect finite being, subject to
change--ignorant, incapable of creating anything--I find by my finitude
that I am not the infinite; by my liability to change that I am not the
immutable; by my ignorance that I am not the omniscient: in short, by
my imperfection, that I am not the perfect. Yet an infinite,
immutable, om