em to be true, will become proofs of the Deity. The
more the great spring that directs the machine of the universe is
exact, simple, constant, certain, and productive of abundance of
useful effects, the more it is plain that a most potent and most
artful hand knew how to pitch upon the spring which is the most
perfect of all.

SECT. XVIII. Of the Stars.

But let us once more view that immense arched roof where the stars
shine, and which covers our heads like a canopy. If it be a solid
vault, what architect built it? Who is it that has fixed so many
great luminous bodies to certain places of that arch and at certain
distances? Who is it that makes that vault turn so regularly about
us? If on the contrary the skies are only immense spaces full of
fluid bodies, like the air that surrounds us, how comes it to pass
that so many solid bodies float in them without ever sinking or ever
coming nearer one another? For all astronomical observations that
have been made in so many ages not the least disorder or irregular
motion has yet been discovered in the heavens. Will a fluid body
range in such constant and regular order bodies that swim circularly
within its sphere? But what does that almost innumerable multitude
of stars mean? The profusion with which the hand of God has
scattered them through His work shows nothing is difficult to His
power. He has cast them about the skies as a magnificent prince
either scatters money by handfuls or studs his clothes with precious
stones. Let who will say, if he pleases, that the stars are as many
worlds like the earth we inhabit; I grant it for one moment; but
then, how potent and wise must He be who makes worlds as numberless
as the grains of sand that cover the sea-shore, and who, without any
trouble, for so many ages governs all these wandering worlds as a
shepherd does a flock of sheep? If on the contrary they are only,
as it were, lighted torches to shine in our eyes in this small globe
called earth, how great is that power which nothing can fatigue,
nothing can exhaust? What a profuse liberality it is to give man in
this little corner of the universe so marvellous a spectacle!

But among those stars I perceive the moon, which seems to share with
the sun the care and office of lighting us. She appears at set
times with all the other stars, when the sun is obliged to go and
carry back the day to the other hemisphere. Thus night itself,
notwithstanding its darkne