education be defective in this respect, I entreat them to do themselves the justice, and enjoy the high gratification, of perusing some of the lucid and interesting popular works on the subject to be found in every bookstore, or in our public libraries-and proceed to select from the vast mass of modern discoveries those which have a bearing upon the question, Is the progress of astronomical discovery hostile or favourable to natural and revealed religion?

The progress of astronomical science has swept away the alleged facts on which all systems of Atheism have heen based.

1. It has refuted the fundamental dogma of Atheism, that the universe is infinite, and therefore self-existent. The assertion is confidently made by Atheists and Pantheists, that the universe has no boundaries; not merely none which we can see, but that it actually fills all immensity: suns succeeding suns, and firmament clustering beyond firmament, throughout infinite space.

It is indispensable for the Atheist not only to assert, but to prove this to be the fact, if he would convince himself or any other person that the universe had no Creator, but exists by the necessity of its own nature; for that which exists by the necessity of its own nature must exist in all time and in every place. No reason can be given why self-existent suns, planets, and moons should exist in any one portion of space, and not exist in any other similar portion of space. For if such a reason could be given, that reason must show a cause for their existence in the one place and their nonexistence in another; and that cause must have existed before the universe, and must have been a cause sufficient to produce the effect. This sufficient cause includes ability to produce, wisdom to arrange, and force to put in motion all the powers of the universe-qualities which reside only in an intelligent being. This is the cause which the Bible asserts when it says, "In the beginning GoD created the heavens and the earth," and which Atheists deny when they assert that "the universe is eternal and infinite."

Now, this fundamental article of the creed of infidels is utterly incapable of proof. If the fact were really so, they never could prove it. They acknowledge no revelation from an infinite understanding, but found their belief on the knowledge of a number of finite and ignorant beings. Before they are competent to pronounce upon the extent of the universe, they must explore it thoroughly; which, when they shall have done, they will have demonstrated that it has boundaries, seeing they have discovered them; but if they have not thoroughly explored the universe, they cannot say that it is infinite, because they do not know. The very utmost, then, which could possibly be asserted on the matter would be, not that the universe has no boundaries, but that man has never reached them. As in the case of ocean soundings, if we cannot find bottom, we are not therefore to conclude that there is none, but

that our line is not long enough, or our lead not heavy enough, to reach it.

For it were a logical absurdity to say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts-that any number of finite parts could compose an infinite universe. Each sun or planet is a finite object, and any possible number of them can be counted in a sufficient time. It is impossible that any number can be infinite; for we are not using the word infinite here in the loose sense in which it is used by mathematicians when they speak of an infinite series—that is, a series which, though it has no end, has a beginning; but in the strict sense of something having neither beginning nor end. A beginning of the universe, either in space or time, is the very thing the Atheist denies.

While reason thus enables us to show this dogma of the infinity of the universe to be theoretically improbable, and logically irrational, science has lately taken a more decisive step, and demonstrated it to be actually false. The universe has boundaries, and we have seen them. The proof is simple, and easily demonstrable, since the discovery that nebulæ are clusters of stars. That broad band of luminous cloud which stretches across the heaven, called the Milky Way, consists of millions of stars, so small and distant that we cannot see the individual stars, and so numerous that we cannot help seeing the light of the mass just as you see the outline of the forest at a distance, but are unable to distinguish the individual trees. Besides this mass of stars to which our solar system belongs, there are thousands of smaller similar clouds in various parts of the heavens which have successively been shown to consist of multitudes of stars. But all around these star-clouds the clear blue sky is discovered by the naked eye.

Now it is easy to perceive that if all the regions of infinite space were filled either with self-luminous suns, or planets capable of reflecting light, or comets of gaseous consistency, at such distances as the Milky Way or any other star-cloud demonstrates to be safe and practicable, we should see no blue sky at all, but the whole vault of heaven would present that whitish light resulting from the mingling of the rays of multitudes of stars, planets, and comets, which the Milky Way does actually exhibit. No matter how small or how distant these stars, if they were only infinitely numerous it is impossible that there could be any point in the heavens unilluminated by their rays, even although the stars themselves were invisible to our eyes, or even to our telescopes. The whole heaven would be one vast Milky Way.

Though the telescope discovers multitudes of stars where the naked eye sees none, yet they are, in far the greater number of instances, "seen projected on a perfectly dark heaven, without any appearance of intermixed nebulosity." And even through the Milky Way and the other nebulæ the telescope penetrates

* Herschell's "Outlines," ch. xvii., sec. 887.

through "intervals absolutely dark, and completely void of any star of the smallest telescopic magnitude."* It may assist us to understand the full import of this declaration to remember that Lord Rosse's large telescope clearly defines any object on the moon's surface as large as the Custom House. Its power of penetrating space surpasses our power of imagination, but is represented by saying, that light, which flashes from San Francisco to London quicker than you can close your eye and open it again, requires millions of years to travel to our earth from the most distant star-cloud discoverable by this telescope.† If a galaxy like this of ours existed anywhere within this amazing distance, that telescope would discover its existence. It has, in fact, augmented the universe visible to us 125,000,000 times, and thus made us feel that not merely this world, which constitutes our earthly all, and yon glorious sun which shines upon it, but all the host of heaven's suns, and planets, and moons, and firmaments which our unaided eyes behold, are but as a handful of the sand of the ocean shore compared with the immensity of the universe. But ever, and along with this, it has shown us the ocean as well as the shore, and revealed boundless regions of darkness and solitude stretching around and far away beyond these islands of existence. The telescope, then, enlarges and confirms our views of the extent of the unoccupied portions of space.

If there were only one dark point of the heavens no larger than the apparent magnitude of the smallest star, this one unoccupied space would sufficiently disprove the infinity of the universe, inasmuch as there would be a portion of space of boundless length, and of a diameter not less than the diameter of the earth's orbit-say 190,000,000 miles-in which stars might exist, as they do in its borders, but yet do not. But the argument becomes utterly overwhelming when the attempt is made to calculate the proportion of space occupied by the stars to that left unoccupied. Whether we take Herschell's computation, that the nebula cover one 270th part of the superficies of the visible heaven,‡ or Struve's supposition of the existence of a star subtending no measurable angle, in every part of the visible sky as large as the surface of the moon, the vast disproportion of the universe to the space in which it is placed forces itself upon our notice. For, upon the largest of these computations, the proportion of existence to empty space is mathematically proved to be not greater than as the cube of 1 to the cube of 269; that is to say, there is room for 19,395,109 such universes as this of ours in that small part of infinite space open to the view of Herschell's telescopes. But when we come to consider the vastness of these regions of darkness, over which no light has travelled for twenty millions of years, and remember also that astronomers have looked

clear through the nebula, and find that they bear no more cubical proportion to the infinite darkness behind them than the sparks of a chimney do to the extent of the sky against which they seem projected; so far from imagining the universe to be infinite, we stand confounded at its relative insignificance, and are convinced that it bears no more proportion to infinite space than a fishing-boat does to the Atlantic Ocean.

There is no possible evasion of this great fact by any contradictory hypothesis. It cannot be objected "that stars may exist at infinite distances, whose light has not yet reached the limits of our universe." If they do, they did not exist from eternity, for there is no possible distance over which light could not have travelled during eternal duration. But their eternal existence is the very thing which the Atheist is concerned to prove. Grant that infinite space is filled with worlds which had a beginning, and their necessary existence instantly falls, and we are compelled to seek for a cause of their beginning of existence; that is to say, a Creator.

Nor will it answer the purpose to say, "that, for anything we know to the contrary, these dark regions may be filled with dark stars."

If the fact were so, it is equally fatal to the dogma of self-existence. Some stars shine; others are dark. Why so? Wherefore this difference? Variety is an effect, and demands a prior cause. Were there only two stars in the sky, or two substances on the earth, and those unlike in any particular, that plurality and that variety would prove that they could not be infinite or self-existent, but dependent upon some cause for their existence and their various forms.

But we do know many things contrary to the notion that the dark regions of infinite space may be full of dark stars. Light is not the only indication of the presence of a star. The attraction of gravity, which is wholly independent of light, is a proof quite as certain and satisfactory to the astronomer. The presence of stars and planets too faint to be discovered by the naked eye, and of one, the planet Neptune,* as far distant from the planet disturbed by its attraction as the earth is from the sun, was ascertained, and its place pointed out to a degree, by Adams and Leverrier, before it was seen. If the dark interplanetary spaces, then, were full of dark attracting bodies, the perturbations of the other planets would discover their existence. So the presence of some invisible stars at much greater distances from their visible associates has been discovered by Bessel,† and it is quite possible that a dark firmament may yet be discovered, containing as great a number of dark stars as we now behold of luminaries: another group of islets in the ocean of infinite space. But the very facts which will prove their existence will disprove their infinity; for we can know their presence only by their perturbation of the proper motions of the

* Nicholl's "Contemplations on the Solar System," XXX "Cosmos," iii, 253.

visible stars; but if infinite space were full of dark bodies, the visible stars would have no room to move at all. It is easily demonstrable, that if infinite space were filled with dark stars, the equilibrium and coherence of our galaxy, and of all other clusters of stars, would be destroyed. The existence of nebulæ and clusters, and the revolutions of the binary stars, are conclusive proof that the dark parts of infinite space are not full of dark attracting bodies.

Nor can the Atheist here raise his usual argument from unknown facts, and say that, "far beyond the range of our most powerful telescopes, a boundless expanse of firmaments may exist." It concerns not our present argument whether such exist or not. Whatso

ever discoveries may be made to eternity, of firmaments, ten thousand times ten thousand times larger than we now behold, they can never bear the smallest proportion to the infinite space in which they exist. Beyond these islets will extend gulfs and oceans immeasurable. Our argument, however, has no concern with the unknown possible, but with the actual fact-visible to the naked eye, and confirmed by the telescope-that there is a portion of space in which millions of universes such as this might exist with safety, yet they do not. Worlds, therefore, do not exist by the necessity of their own nature, wherever there is room for them, but must have had some pre-existent, external, and supernatural cause of their existence in this place and not in other places. This implies choice-will-God.

The physical refutation of the self-existence of the universe is completed by the discovery, that all the orbs of heaven, as well as the earth, are in motion, and that an orderly and regulated motion. The fact need not be illustrated, for it is not denied. The consequence is inevitable. That which is self-existent must be unchangeable for change is an effect, and demands a cause; and the cause must exist before the effect, and produce it. Whatsoever is changeable, then, is a product of a prior cause, and so not self-existent. But the universe is changeable, for it is in motion, which is a change of place: therefore the universe is not selfexistent, but the product of a prior cause.

No mechanical law is a sufficient cause for this motion. To allege that a power of orderly, regulated motion--and there is no other sort of motion in heaven or earth -is an inherent property of matter, is simply to insult our common sense, and overturn the foundation of all reason. For we have no knowledge of matter, and can have none, more certain than we have of the constitution of our own minds, which requires us to trace up every change among material objects to the energy and will of a person capable of planning and effecting the change. To refer us to the law of gravity, is not to give us a cause for the motions of the heavenly bodies, but only a name; for law is only a rule of action. We demand a lawgiver—an agent-a force, capable of producing

* Herschell's "Outlines," ch. xvi.

effects. When the law of projectile makes a cannonball, and projects it, we will believe that the law of gravity made the worlds, and moves them.

"Descending within the mind's interior chambers, I find no conviction so sure of the existence of an external world, as is my belief in the reality of power-of something that sustains succession, and causes order. Again, then, whence this idea, and what is it? What this attribute with which I endow material laws, and raise them into forces? Now, in my apprehension, the strictest scrutiny cannot obtain for these inquiries any reply save one we primarily connect the idea of power with no change or movement, except an act or determination of the FREE WILL; but from such acts, that idea is inseparable. If, therefore, in order to explain the progress of material things, we require the agency of efficient causes, is not this a direct and solemn recognition-through all form and transiency-of the necessity of an ever-present creative power: a power requisite and necessary to uphold-to renew the universe every moment-or, rather, to prolong creation by the persistence of the creative act? And, in very truth, startling though it be, such is the only and ultimate scientific idea of the Divine Omnipresence. Law is not even the Almighty's minister; the order of the material world, however close and firm, is not merely the Almighty's ordinance. The forces, if so we name them, which express that order, are not powers which he has evolved from the silences, and to whose guardianship he has committed all things, so that he himself might repose. No above, below, around, there is God: there his universal presence, speaking to finite creatures, in finite forms, a language which only the living heart can understand. In the rain and the sunshine; in the soft zephyrs; in the cloud, the torrent, and the thunder; in the bursting blossom, and the fading branch; in the revolving season, and the rolling star,-there is the Infinite Essence, and the mystic development of His WILL."*

2. Scientific Astronomy inexorally demolishes the Atheistic scheme for the arrangement of the Solar System by accident, commonly known as Buffon's cosmogony.

"Buffon supposes that the force of a comet falling obliquely on the sun has projected to a distance a torrent of the matter of which it is composed, as a stone thrown into a basin causes the water which it contains to splash out. This torrent of matter, in a state of fusion, has broken into several parts, which have been arrested at different distances from the sun, according to their density, or the impetus they received. They then united in spheres, by the effect of motion of rotation, and condensing by cold, have become opaque and solid planets and satellites."+

This formation of worlds by accident, it is true, gave no reason for the form of their orbits, for their rotation *Nicholl's "Architecture of the Heavens," Sth ed., 272. † Pontecoulant in "System of the World," p. 70.

on their axes, in one direction, and that, too, the direction of their motion; nor for several other matters, of which infidels make little account, but about which plain men like to ask, namely: Where did the sun come from? What melted it down into a fluid state, fit to be splashed about? Where did the comet come from? And who threw it with so correct an aim through infinite space as exactly to hit the sun in an oblique direction? Creation, it seems, was nearly missed, after all. This chaotic theory never gained much respect from men of science, though its simplicity speedily opened its way among the vulgar, and it has ever been a favourite with the most ignorant class of infidels, numbering thousands of warm advocates, even at the present day.

It was thought to be very much corroborated by the discovery of the asteroids, and their supposed formation by the explosion of a larger body. There is a certain proportion observed in the distances of the orbits of the planets from each other—a breadth of gauge, as it were, on the celestial railroad. But there was the breadth of a track between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter on which no train ran, and this vacancy excited the curiosity of astronomers. In the first seven years of this century, three very small planets were discovered, running near this track; and Dr. Olbers, the discoverer of Pallas, finding that they were nearly in the same track, and sometimes crossed each other, and that they were diminutively small-bearing about the same proportion to a regular planet which a hand-car does to a freight trainimagined that they were formed by the explosion of a large planet that the boiler of the large locomotive had burst, the fragments had all lighted upon the track again, in the shape of hand-cars, and the hand-cars had magnanimously resolved to keep running, and do the business of the line; and that, as there must have been material enough in the original planet to make some thousands of them, more would be discovered by watching two depots, at the crossings of the tracks, in the constellations Virgo and the Whale, where they must all pass. In fact, he did himself find another, very near one of these nodes; and quite lately, thirty-eight others have been found; and astronomers now expect to hear of one or two more every year. At first sight, his theory seemed strengthened by every new discovery. It is true, reflecting men could not help wondering at such a marvellously regular explosion as would produce beautiful little orderly planets, going so regularly and curiously too, and all by accident. They never heard of the blowing up of a palace producing cottages, or the explosion of a steamboat throwing off the hurricane deck in the shape of whaleboats, or the bursting of a locomotive producing model engines or even hand-cars. However, as the theory removed God out of sight, it was generally accepted, and freely used by infidels, to show that the world had no need of a Creator.

But astronomers saw, that as each new asteroid had a track of its own, and ran to a different terminus, and

the roads in which they ran were of different gauges and grades one little asteroid, Pallas, running up and down a track inclined 35 degrees, just as speedily as the others-every new discovery increased the difficulty of accounting for their origin by explosion. But the discovery of the planet Hygeia, at a vast distance from the others, utterly overturned the explosion theory. Loomis says :— "The difficulties in the way of our regarding these small planets as fragments of a single body, were wellnigh insuperable before the discovery of Hygeia. This last discovery has probably given the death-blow to the theory of Olbers. The orbit of Hygeia completely incloses the orbits of several of the asteroids, its perihelion distance that is, its least distance from the sun -exceeding the aphelion-or greatest distance-of Flora by twenty-five millions of miles. No change of position of the orbits could, therefore, bring these orbits to a coincidence."*

The matter has been finally settled by the greatest of modern mathematicians, Leverrier, who has subjected the eccentricities, distances, and inclinations of the orbits of the asteroids to a mathematical investigation, the result of which is as follows:

"In the present state of things, these eccentricities and these inclinations are totally incompatible with Olber's hypothesis, which supposed that the small planets-some of which were discovered even in his day-were produced from the wreck of a larger star, which had exploded. The forces necessary to launch the fragments of a given body in such different routes (whose existence we should be obliged to suppose), would be of such an improbable intensity, that the most limited mathematical knowledge could not but see its absurdity." He concludes the memoir by advancing four propositions, "which for ever annihilate Olber's hypothesis." +

The Buffonian theory, thus deprived of the only apparently analogous fact by which it was supported, was restored to its birthplace in the regions of foggy hypothesis. But science, indignant that such nonsense should ever have dared to assume her livery, will not allow it to linger even among the shades. Those irregular world-breaking comets, which, while their density was unknown, formed such convenient sledgehammers for the atheist's world-factory, have been literally dissipated into smoke by powerful telescopes. In fact, a respectable wreath of smoke is quite a substantial being compared with the densest of the comets.

"The smallest comets, such as are visible only in telescopes, or with difficulty by the naked eye, and which are by far the most numerous, offer very frequently no appearance of a tail, and appear only as round or somewhat oval vaporous masses, more dense towards the centre, where, however, they appear to have no distinct nucleus, or anything which seems

* "Progress of Astronomy," 70.

+ Memoir to the French Academy, by M. Leverrier; from "The Annual of Scientific Discovery," for 1855, p. 376.