ng still farther, until it occupied just the space circumscribed
by the orbit of Jupiter, the Sun now found need of farther effort to
restore the counterbalance of its two forces, continually disarranged in
the still continued increase of rotation. Jupiter, accordingly, was now
thrown off; passing from the annular to the planetary condition; and, on
attaining this latter, threw off in its turn, at four different epochs,
four rings, which finally resolved themselves into so many moons.

Still shrinking, until its sphere occupied just the space defined by the
orbit of the Asteroids, the Sun now discarded a ring which appears to
have had _eight_ centres of superior solidity, and, on breaking up, to
have separated into eight fragments no one of which so far predominated
in mass as to absorb the others. All therefore, as distinct although
comparatively small planets, proceeded to revolve in orbits whose
distances, each from each, may be considered as in some degree the
measure of the force which drove them asunder:--all the orbits,
nevertheless, being so closely coincident as to admit of our calling
them _one_, in view of the other planetary orbits.

Continuing to shrink, the Sun, on becoming so small as just to fill the
orbit of Mars, now discharged this planet--of course by the process
repeatedly described. Having no moon, however, Mars could have thrown
off no ring. In fact, an epoch had now arrived in the career of the
parent body, the centre of the system. The _de_crease of its nebulosity,
which is the _in_crease of its density, and which again is the
_de_crease of its condensation, out of which latter arose the constant
disturbance of equilibrium--must, by this period, have attained a point
at which the efforts for restoration would have been more and more
ineffectual just in proportion as they were less frequently needed. Thus
the processes of which we have been speaking would everywhere show signs
of exhaustion--in the planets, first, and secondly, in the original mass.
We must not fall into the error of supposing the decrease of interval
observed among the planets as we approach the Sun, to be in any respect
indicative of an increase of frequency in the periods at which they were
discarded. Exactly the converse is to be understood. The longest
interval of time must have occurred between the discharges of the two
interior; the shortest, between those of the two exterior, planets. The
decrease of the interval of space