BOOK II.COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS.
When we turn our attention to the larger portions of the universe, the sun, the planets, and the earth as one of them, the moon and other satellites, the fixed stars and other heavenly bodies;—the views which we obtain concerning their mutual relations, arrangement and movements, are called, as we have already stated,cosmicalviews. These views will, we conceive, afford us indications of the wisdom and care of the Power by which the objects which we thus consider, were created and are preserved: and we shall now proceed to point out some circumstances in which these attributes may be traced.
It has been observed by writers on Natural Theology, that the arguments for the being and perfections of the Creator, drawn from cosmical considerations, labour under some disadvantages when compared with the arguments founded on those provisions and adaptations which more immediately affect the well-being of organized creatures. The structure of the solar system has far less analogy with such machinery as we can construct and comprehend, than we find in the structure of the bodies of animals, or even in the causes of the weather. Moreover, we do not see the immediate bearing of cosmical arrangements on that end which we most readily acknowledge to be useful and desirable, the support and comfort of sentient natures. So that, from both causes, the impression of benevolent design in this case is lessstriking and pointed than that which results from the examination of some other parts of nature.
But in considering the universe, according to the view we have taken, as a collection oflaws, astronomy, the science which teaches us the laws of the motions of the heavenly bodies, possesses some advantages, among the subjects from which we may seek to learn the character of the government of the world. For our knowledge of the laws of the motions of the planets and satellites is far more complete and exact, far more thorough and satisfactory, than the knowledge which we possess in any other department of Natural Philosophy. Our acquaintance with the laws of the solar system is such, that we can calculate the precise place and motion of most of its parts at any period, past or future, however remote; and we can refer the changes which take place in these circumstances to their proximate cause, the attraction of one mass of matter to another, acting between all the parts of the universe.
If, therefore, we trace indications of the Divine care, either in the form of the laws which prevail among the heavenly bodies, or in the arbitrary quantities which such laws involve; (according to the distinction explained in the former part of this work;) we may expect that our examples of such care, though they may be less numerous and obvious, will be more precise than they can be in other subjects, where the laws of facts are imperfectly known, and their causes entirely hid. We trust that this will be found to be the case with regard to some of the examples which we shall adduce.