e, can act no otherwise than it does act; neither can all the
efforts of human invention make it act otherwise. That which, in all
such cases, man calls the effect, is no other than the principle itself
rendered perceptible to the senses.

Since, then, man cannot make principles, from whence did he gain a
knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not only to things on
earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so immensely distant from
him as all the heavenly bodies are? From whence, I ask, could he gain
that knowledge, but from the study of the true theology?

It is the structure of the universe that has taught this knowledge to
man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of every principle
upon which every part of mathematical science is founded. The offspring
of this science is mechanics; for mechanics is no other than the
principles of science applied practically. The man who proportions the
several parts of a mill uses the same scientific principles as if he had
the power of constructing an universe, but as he cannot give to matter
that invisible agency by which all the component parts of the immense
machine of the universe have influence upon each other, and act in
motional unison together, without any apparent contact, and to which
man has given the name of attraction, gravitation, and repulsion, he
supplies the place of that agency by the humble imitation of teeth and
cogs. All the parts of man's microcosm must visibly touch. But could
he gain a knowledge of that agency, so as to be able to apply it in
practice, we might then say that another canonical book of the word of
God had been discovered.

If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also could he alter
the properties of the triangle: for a lever (taking that sort of lever
which is called a steel-yard, for the sake of explanation) forms, when
in motion, a triangle. The line it descends from, (one point of that
line being in the fulcrum,) the line it descends to, and the chord of
the arc, which the end of the lever describes in the air, are the
three sides of a triangle. The other arm of the lever describes also a
triangle; and the corresponding sides of those two triangles, calculated
scientifically, or measured geometrically,--and also the sines,
tangents, and secants generated from the angles, and geometrically
measured,--have the same proportions to each other as the different
weights have that will balance each other on the