, my unlearned readers will perhaps be led to conclude that the
creation of a world is not so difficult a task as they at first imagined.
I have shown at least a score of ingenious methods in which a world could
be constructed; and I have no doubt that had any of the philosophers above
quoted the use of a good manageable comet, and the philosophical
warehouse, chaos, at his command, he would engage to manufacture, a planet
as good, or, if you would take his word for it, better than this we
inhabit.

And here I cannot help noticing the kindness of Providence in creating
comets for the great relief of bewildered philosophers. By their
assistance more sudden evolutions and transitions are effected in the
system of nature than are wrought in a pantomimic exhibition by the
wonder-working sword of harlequin. Should one of our modern sages, in his
theoretical flights among the stars, ever find himself lost in the clouds,
and in danger of tumbling into the abyss of nonsense and absurdity, he has
but to seize a comet by the beard, mount astride of its tail, and away he
gallops in triumph like an enchanter on his hippogriff, or a Connecticut
witch on her broomstick, "to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky."

It is an old and vulgar saying about a "beggar on horseback" which I would
not for the world have applied to these reverend philosophers; but I must
confess that some of them, when they are mounted on one of those fiery
steeds, are as wild in their curvettings as was Phaeton of yore, when he
aspired to manage the chariot of Phoebus. One drives his comet at full
speed against the sun, and knocks the world out of him with the mighty
concussion; another, more moderate, makes his comet a kind of beast of
burden, carrying the sun a regular supply of food and faggots; a third, of
more combustible disposition, threatens to throw his comet like a
bombshell into the world, and blow it up like a powder magazine; while a
fourth, with no great delicacy to this planet and its inhabitants,
insinuates that some day or other his comet--my modest pen blushes while I
write it--shall absolutely turn tail upon our world and deluge it with
water! Surely, as I have already observed, comets were bountifully
provided by Providence for the benefit of philosophers to assist them in
manufacturing theories.

And now, having adduced several of the most prominent theories that occur
to my recollection, I leave my judicious readers at full liberty to
choose