other, directly
in proportion to their mass, and inversely as the square of their
distances. This law appears to prevail as far as our observation extends
through space; and our world builders affirm that it must have operated
eternally, and that not only were the separate parts of our earth thus
drawn together, but that all the orbs of heaven were caused to revolve
under its influence.

Suppose, however, we grant that matter was eternal, and the force of
gravitation eternally operating upon it, would that sufficiently account
for the building up of even our own little planetary system? By no
means.

The unresisted force of gravitation would, in far less than an eternity,
draw all things together toward the center of gravity of the universe.
We should not have separate stars, and suns, and planets, and moons,
revolving in orderly orbits, but one vast mass of matter, in which all
motion had long since ceased. There must be some power of resistance to
gravitation, and nicely balanced against it, a centrifugal force--no
matter whether you call it heat, light, or electricity, or by any other
name--from which balance of power the movements of the universe are
regulated. But here again we arrive at the same conclusion from the
balance of power to which we were before driven by the combination of
matter--regulated power proclaims a regulator, a governor. Power
belongeth unto God.

In world-building we need not only a quarry of materials, and power for
transportation, but a head to plan their arrangement. For, as ten
thousand loads of brick and stone dumped down higgledy piggledy will not
build a house, neither will ten thousand millions of materials poured
into a chaos make a world like this earth, arranged in order and beauty.
It is grossly absurd to imagine that the inanimate materials of the
earth arranged themselves in their present orderly structure.

Absurd as it seems to every man of common sense, there are persons
claiming to be philosophers who not only assert that they did, but will
tell you how they did it. One class of them think they have found it out
by supposing every thing in the universe reduced to very fine powder,
consisting of very small grains, which they call atoms; or, if that is
not fine enough, into gas, of which it is supposed the particles are too
fine to be perceived; and then by different arrangements of these atoms,
according to the laws of attraction and electricity, the various
elements of