portance. It is the beneficence of the result which indicates mind, and this indication of mind imphes a " vohmtary agent."
Our solar system itself, therefore, is vast, varied, and well ordered. Our system, however, is one of probably hundreds of milhons. At least astronomers assert their knowledge of a hundred million of suns, some of which are incalculably larger than ours. Sirius is calculated to shine with a light equal to two hundred and fifty of our suns ; Alcyone with that of twelve thousand suns. The nearest of these stars is separated from the outer planet of our system twenty-one billions of miles. These millions of stars are not scattered equally through space, but are gathered into groups, the members of which bear an obvious relation to each other.
Besides these systems in which planets are assumed to revolve ai'ound suns, there are othei's in which suns revolve around suns, at distances proportioned to their magnitude. The light emanating from these great luminaries is of different colors, white, red, blue.
Then more distant in space float the unresolved nebulae. Whether these nebulae are vast continents of stars too distant to be distinguisliable, or cosmical matter in a formative state, is still an open question with astronomers. Two thousand have been counted in the northern hemisphere, and one thousand in the southern. They assume every variety of form ; some are spherical, some fan- shaped, some spiral, some in circular rings. It is estimated that the light of some of the stars has been many thousand years in reaching our earth, although travelling at the rate of more than ten millions of miles a minute.
Throughout this vast universe order reigns. In the midst of endless variety, there is unity. The same laws of gravitation, of light, and of heat everywhere prevail. Confusion and disorder are the uniform result of chance or blindly operating forces. Order is the sure indication of mind. What mind ! what wisdom ! what power ! what beneficence ! does this all but infinite universe dis- play!
" The result of our whole experience," said Sir Gilbert Eliot, writing to Hume himself, " seems to amount to this : — There are but two ways in whicli we have ever observed the different parcels of matter to be thrown together, — either at random, or with design and purpose. By the first, we have never seen produced a regular complicated effect, corresponding to a certain end ; by the second, we uniformly have. If, then, the works of nature and the pro- ductions of men resemble each other in this bne general character-