that movement which is, as it were, the lasting
life of nature. This force of repulsion is manifested in the elasticity
of vapors, the effluences of strong-smelling bodies, and the diffusion
of all spirituous matters. This force is an uncontestable phenomenon of
matter. It is by it that the elements, which may be falling to the point
attracting them, are turned sideways promiscuously from their movement
in a straight line; and their perpendicular fall thereby issues in
circular movements, which encompass the centre towards which they were
falling. In order to make the formation of the world more distinctly
conceivable, we will limit our view by withdrawing it from the infinite
universe of nature and directing it to a particular system, as the
one which belongs to our sun. Having considered the generation of this
system, we shall be able to advance to a similar consideration of the
origin of the great world-systems, and thus to embrace the infinitude of
the whole creation in one conception.

"From what has been said, it will appear that if a point is situated in
a very large space where the attraction of the elements there situated
acts more strongly than elsewhere, then the matter of the elementary
particles scattered throughout the whole region will fall to that point.
The first effect of this general fall is the formation of a body at this
centre of attraction, which, so to speak, grows from an infinitely
small nucleus by rapid strides; and in the proportion in which this mass
increases, it also draws with greater force the surrounding particles
to unite with it. When the mass of this central body has grown so great
that the velocity with which it draws the particles to itself with great
distances is bent sideways by the feeble degree of repulsion with which
they impede one another, and when it issues in lateral movements which
are capable by means of the centrifugal force of encompassing the
central body in an orbit, then there are produced whirls or vortices
of particles, each of which by itself describes a curved line by the
composition of the attracting force and the force of revolution that had
been bent sideways. These kinds of orbits all intersect one another,
for which their great dispersion in this space gives place. Yet these
movements are in many ways in conflict with one another, and they
naturally tend to bring one another to a uniformity--that is, into a
state in which one movement is as little obstructiv