Mind, we would expect them to move in all parts of the heavens, their orbits spanning every part of the celestial sphere, like the circles of longitude on a globe. Instead of this, we find their orbits compressed into the narrow zone of the zodiac; and the essential thing to be remarked is, that this limitation to the same plane is essential to the stability of the system. The direction in which the planets move, also exhibits the same remarkable harmony—this direction being from west to east, a condition also essential to the stability of the system. But unless we introduce the idea of design, we would have no ground to look for such a striking uniformity. Laplace has reduced to numbers the improbability of such a uniformity being a fortunate chance. By the calculus of probabilities, the chance is above four millions of times to one against the supposition that the forty-three motions (corresponding to the number of planets then known) from west to east, are the result of mere chance. He puts the probability of a primitive cause in another form, by shewing that it is two millions of times greater than the expectation that the sun will rise on the morrow. But Laplace would by no means acknowledge that this primitive cause is an Intelligent Cause, or an argument for the existence of God. His idea of a First Cause would be satisfied, if it could be shewn that the actual arrangement of the heavenly bodies necessarily resulted from the nebular hypothesis; and his opponents have, un-
