And hence it becomes obvious that the "origin of the nebula"
presents a difficulty neither greater nor less than "the origin of the
planets," since, "if we may go back as far as we please," we can entertain
no _scientific_ doubt that we should come to a time, prior even to the
nebula, when the substance of the solar system existed merely as
such--_i.e._, in an almost or in a wholly undifferentiated form, the
product, no doubt, of endless cycles of previous evolutions and
dissolutions of formal differentiations. Therefore, although it is
undoubtedly true that "the solar system could only have been evolved out of
its nebulous state into that which it now presents if the nebula possessed"
those particular attributes which were necessity to the evolution of such a
product, this consideration is clearly deprived of all its force from our
present point of view. For unless it can be shown that there is some
independent reason for believing these particular attributes--which must
have been of a more and more simple a character the further we recede in
time--to have been miraculously imposed, the analogy is overwhelming that
they all progressively arose _by way of natural law_. And if so, the
universe which has been thus produced is the only universe in this
particular point of space and time which could have been thus produced.
That it is an _orderly_ universe we have seen _ad nauseam_ to be no
argument in favour of its having been a _designed_ universe, so long as the
cause of its order--general laws--can be seen to admit of a natural
explanation.
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