“However multiplied interior actions may be, the universe, as a whole, must have a common movement, or none.  One division cannot, in relation to the rest, stand still, lag behind, fly off, or diverge from its place, without destroying all unity.  The earth is full of motions; but they do not interfere with her general and uniform motion.  So it is with the universal orb:  its rotation is, we believe, fundamental,—­the basis of all other movements, without which there could be none other.

“In everything, there is virtue in FORM; and we surmise that vastly more depends on the configuration and movement of matter as one mass, than has been suspected.  As perfect a whole as any of its parts, must not the universe have a definable outline or shape,—­one to which nothing amorphous can possibly belong?  What is its figure?  It can hardly be a cube, cylinder, or prism of any kind; indeed, we might as reasonably suppose it a three-sided figure as one bounded at all by straight lines.  No one extending in one direction more than in another could have met the exigencies of creation; and that the universe is a sphere may also be inferred from fluid matter naturally assuming that form,—­perhaps because its elements have it.  Had atoms been bounded by plane surfaces, so, we may suppose, had worlds, drops of water, and soap-bubbles.

“The universe is spherical, then, because its molecules are:  and it moves, because they are incapable of rest.”

Does this mean that the totality of matter is finite?—­that it can be viewed, spiritually, from the outside,—­even from such a distance as to appear infinitely small?  If so, can there be infinite power, either material or spiritual?  If the universe is spherical because its molecules are, can the molecules compose any other than the spherical form?  Do we gain much by reasoning from an assumption below the ken of the microscope to a conclusion above that of the telescope?

Mr. Ewbank, however, does not often indulge in a logical stride so long or on such shaky footing as this.  Through more or less cloudiness of expression, he gives us many striking and satisfactory views, looking towards a complete synthesis of the glorious system of things to which we belong, makes out the universe as habitable and cheerful as it is wide, and leaves us admiring its good more than marvelling at its evil.  He maintains that all solar and planetary bodies have a central, vital heat, produced and maintained by the same cause,—­to wit, the gravitating or condensing force; its intensity being as the mass.  In the sun, the mass is so great, that, in spite of its inferior density, more and intenser heat is generated by condensation than in any or all of the planets.  If the whole orb is not incandescent, there is such intense heat in its central portion as to generate gases, which, being thrown up through its atmosphere, to a height at least as great as the whole diameter of our globe, condense there again with an ineffably