mechanical philosophy. In the whirlpool and
the whirlwind the gyration is caused by the fluid passing, not _to_ the
centre, but _through_ it and away from it; in the whirlpool downwards
through the place of exit, in the whirlwind upwards to where the vacuum
has caused the rapid aggregation.

LAPLACE was too able a mathematician to commit these elementary
blunders; he did not assume to account for rotation by inapplicable
laws, but took for granted that the sun revolved upon its axis, and
thence communicated a corresponding motion to the bodies thrown from its
surface. But our author has sought to advance beyond his teacher, and in
this way has shown his ignorance of physics by an egregious mistake. At
this point we might stop, without following the ulterior steps by which
the solar system is made to evolve out of heated vapour. Having got
rotation, though by an impossible process, the author falls into the
illustration already given of the theory of LAPLACE. The rotation of
each nucleus or sun round its axis produces centrifugal force; that
force, by refrigeration, increases beyond the centripetal force of
gravity; in consequence rings are formed and detached from the surface,
whose unequal coherence of parts mostly causes them to break into
separate masses or planets, partaking of the motion of the bodies from
which they have been separated, and these primaries in their turn
becoming centres of gravitation and centrifugal force, throw off their
secondaries, or _moons_.

In this way the solar system and other systems upon a similar plan of
arrangement, it is conjectured, may have been formed. According to the
author the generative process is still in progress, and new worlds are
in course of being thrown off from new suns in the confines of creation.
These nebulous stars on the outer bounds of space, of varying forms and
brightness, are supposed to be the centres of new systems in different
stages of development, like children of various ages and growth in a
numerous family. This is the author's own illustration (p. 20), and
after giving it he proceeds:--

"Precisely thus, seeing in our astral system many thousands of
worlds in all stages of formation, from the most rudimental to that
immediately preceding the present condition of those we deem
perfect, it is unavoidable to conclude that all the perfect have
gone through the various stages which we see in the rudimental.
This leads us a