BOOK II - COSMICAL ARRANGEMENTS

Summary

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, cosmical views. 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 less striking and pointed than that which results from the examination of some other parts of nature.