If such be the cosmogony of the solar system, such the genesis of the planetary worlds, we are constrained to extend our views of the dominion of law, and to recognize its agency in the creation as well as in the conservation of the innumerable orbs that throng the universe.

But, again, it may be asked:  “Is there not something profoundly impious in this?  Are we not excluding Almighty God from the world he has made?

We have often witnessed the formation of a cloud in a serene sky.  A hazy point, barely perceptible—­a little wreath of mist—­increases in volume, and becomes darker and denser, until it obscures a large portion of the heavens.  It throws itself into fantastic shapes, it gathers a glory from the sun, is borne onward by the wind, and, perhaps, as it gradually came, so it gradually disappears, melting away in the untroubled air.

Now, we say that the little vesicles of which this cloud was composed arose from the condensation of water-vapor preexisting in the atmosphere, through reduction of temperature; we show how they assumed the form they present.  We assign optical reasons for the brightness or blackness of the cloud; we explain, on mechanical principles, its drifting before the wind; for its disappearance we account on the principles of chemistry.  It never occurs to us to invoke the interposition of the Almighty in the production and fashioning of this fugitive form.  We explain all the facts connected with it by physical laws, and perhaps should reverentially hesitate to call into operation the finger of God.

But the universe is nothing more than such a cloud—­a cloud of suns and worlds.  Supremely grand though it may seem to us, to the Infinite and Eternal Intellect it is no more than a fleeting mist.  If there be a multiplicity of worlds in infinite space, there is also a succession of worlds in infinite time.  As one after another cloud replaces cloud in the skies, so this starry system, the universe, is the successor of countless others that have preceded it—­the predecessor of countless others that will follow.  There is an unceasing metamorphosis, a sequence of events, without beginning or end.

If, on physical principles, we account for minor meteorological incidents, mists and clouds, is it not permissible for us to appeal to the same principle in the origin of world-systems and universes, which are only clouds on a space-scale somewhat larger, mists on a time-scale somewhat less transient?  Can any man place the line which bounds the physical on one side, the supernatural on the other?  Do not our estimates of the extent and the duration of things depend altogether on our point of view?  Were we set in the midst of the great nebula of Orion, how transcendently magnificent the scene!  The vast transformations, the condensations of a fiery mist into worlds, might seem worthy of the immediate presence, the supervision of God; here, at our distant station, where millions of miles are