PREFACE.

HAVING been requested by the Editor of the North British Review to give an account of a work entitled Of a Plurality of Worlds, an Essay, I undertook the task, in the belief that it contained sentiments similar to my own, and that I should have the gratification of illustrating and recommending a doctrine which had long been the creed of the Philosopher, and the hope of the Christian. I was surprised, however, to find that, under a title calculated to mislead the public, the author had made an elaborate attack upon opinions consecrated, as I had thought, by

Reason and Revelation; and had, in concluding his argument, not only adopted the Nebular Theory, so universally condemned as a dangerous speculation, but had taken a view of the condition of the Solar System, calculated to disparage the science of Astronomy, and to throw a doubt over the noblest of its truths.

Under ordinary circumstances I should have contented myself with such an analysis and criticism of the work as could be given within the narrow limits of a Review; but while the boldness of the author's speculations, and the ingenuity with which they were maintained, required a more elaborate examination of them, the new views which presented themselves to me during the study of the subject, demanded a copious detail of facts which could be given only in a separate Treatise. I have, therefore, devoted the principal part of the volume to a statement of the arguments in favour of a Plurality of Worlds, and have endeavoured, in the subse

quent chapters, to answer the various objections urged against it by the author of the Essay, and to examine the grounds upon which he has attempted to establish the extraordinary doctrine, "that the Earth is really the largest planetary body in the Solar System,-its domestic hearth, and the only world in the Universe!"

ST. LEONARD'S COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS,

April 25th, 1854.