CHAP. IV - The Sun in the Centre

Summary

The next circumstance which we shall notice as indicative of design in the arrangement of the material portions of the solar system, is the position of the sun, the source of light and heat, in the centre of the system. This could hardly have occurred by any thing which we can call chance. Let it be granted, that the law of gravitation is established, and that we have a large mass, with others much smaller in its comparative vicinity. The small bodies may then move round the larger, but this will do nothing towards making it a sun to them. Their motions might take place, the whole system remaining still utterly dark and cold, without day or summer. In order that we may have something more than this blank and dead assemblage of moving clods, the machine must be lighted up and warmed. Some of the advantages of placing the lighting and warming apparatus in the centre are obvious to us. It is in this way only that we could have those regular periodical returns of solar influence, which, as we have seen, are adapted to the constitution of the living creation. And we can easily conceive, that there may be other incongruities in a system with a travelling sun, of which we can only conjecture the nature. No one probably will doubt that the existing system, with the sun in the centre, is better than any one of a different kind would be.