Had it a mind, and a will, and a perception of propriety?
Did the mist become sensible of the lightness of its behavior, and the fire resolve to cool off a little, and both consult together on the propriety of dropping their erratic blazing through infinite space, and resolve to settle down into orderly, well-behaved suns and planets?
In the division of the property, _what became of the mind_?
Did it go to the sun, or to the moon, or to the pole star, or to this earth?
Or, was it clipped up into little pieces and divided among the stars in proportion to their respective magnitudes; so that the sun may have, say the hundredth part of an idea, and the moon a faint perception of it?
Did the fire mist's mind die under this cruel clipping and dissecting process; or is it of the nature of a polypus, each piece alive and growing up to perfection in its own way?
Has each of the planets and fixed stars a great "soul of the world" as well as this earth, and are they looking down intelligently and compassionately on the little globe of ours?
Had we not better build altars to all the host of heaven and return to the religion of our acorn-fed ancestors, who burned their children alive, in honor of the sun, on Sun-days?
An aqueous solution of this difficulty of getting rid of Almighty God, is frequently proposed.

It is known that certain chemical solutions, when mixed together, deposit a sediment, or precipitate, as chemists call it.

And it is supposed that the universe was all once in a state of solution, in primeval oceans, and that the mingling of the waters of these oceans caused them to deposit the various salts and earths which form the worlds in the form of mud, which afterward hardened into rock, or vegetated into trees and men.

Thus, it is clearly demonstrated that there is no need for the Creator if--if--if--we only had somebody to make these primeval oceans--and somebody to mix them together![3] The development theory of the production of the human race from the mud, through the mushroom, the snail, the tortoise, the greyhound, the monkey and the man, which is now such a favorite with atheists, if it were fully proved to be a fact, would only increase the difficulty of getting rid of God.

For either the primeval mud had all the germs of the future plants and monkeys, and men's bodies and souls, in itself originally, or it had not.