There being many chances against this, they would probably break up in the first instance, and be thereafter "agglomerated into one or several masses, which would become representatives of the primary mass, and perhaps give rise to a progeny of inferior masses." In support of this theory, reference is made to the existence, at the present moment, of certain cloud-like nebulae, or masses of diffused luminous matter, exhibiting a variety of appearances, as if they were in various degrees of condensation, and which are described as "solar systems in the process of being formed" out of a previous condition of matter.

And the observations of M.Plateau, of Ghent, are adduced as affording an experimental verification of some parts of the theory, and, especially, as serving to explain the spherical form of the planets, the flattening at the poles, and the swelling out at the equator.
It does not belong to our proper province, nor is it necessary for our present purpose, to discuss the merits of this theory, considered as a question of science.

This has been already done, with various degrees of ability, but with unwonted unanimity, by some of the ablest men of the age,--by Whewell, Sedgwick and Mason, in England, by Sir David Brewster and Mr.Miller, in Scotland, and by Professor Dod and President Hitchcock, in America.[31] But, viewing it simply in its relation to the Theistic argument, we conceive that the adverse presumption which it may possibly generate in some minds against the evidence of Natural Theology, will be effectually neutralized by establishing the following positions: That it is _a mere hypothesis_, and one which, from the very nature of the case, is incapable of being proved by such evidence as is necessary to establish _a matter of fact_.
That the progress of scientific discovery, so far from tending to verify and confirm, has served rather to disprove and invalidate the fundamental assumption on which it rests.
That even were it admitted, either as a possible, or probable, or certain explanation of the origin of the present planetary systems, it would not necessarily destroy the evidence of Theology, nor establish on its ruins the cause of Atheism.
Each of these positions may be conclusively established, and the three combined constitute a complete answer to the theory of Development, in so far as it has been applied in the support or defence of Atheism.
1.

That it is a mere hypothesis or conjecture, designed, not to establish the _historical fact_, but to explain merely the _dynamical possibility_ of the production of the planetary bodies by the operation of known natural laws, must be admitted, I think, even by its most enthusiastic admirers.

It might have seemed, indeed, to have something like a basis of fact to rest upon, had the conception of the elder Herschell been verified, when he announced the existence of a nebulous fluid, capable of being distinguished, by certain well-defined marks, from unresolved clusters of stars; but even then it presupposed so many postulates, which could in no way be established by experimental or historical evidence, that it could scarcely be regarded in any other light than as an ingenious speculation or a splendid conjecture.