SCIENCE AND RELIGION 147 



lateral movements should be set up. A general circu- 

 latory motion is in fact established ultimately in one 

 direction about the central mass, which receiving new 

 particles from the encircling current rotates in har- 

 mony with it. 



Mutual interference in the particles outside the 

 mass of the sun prevents all accumulation except in 

 one plane and that takes the form of a thin disk con- 

 tinuous with the sun's equator. In this circulating 

 vaporous disk about the sun differences of density 

 give rise to zones not unlike the rings of Saturn. 

 These zones ultimately contract to form planets, and 

 as the planets are thrown off from the central solar 

 mass till an equilibrium is established between the 

 centripetal and centrifugal forces, so the satellites in 

 turn are formed from the planets. The comets are to 

 be regarded as parts of the system, akin to the planets, 

 but more remote from the control of the centripetal 

 force of the sun. It is thus that Kant conceived the 

 nebular hypothesis, accounting (through the forma- 

 tion of the heavenly bodies from a cloudy vapor simi- 

 lar to that still observable through the telescope) for 

 the revolution of the planets in one direction about 

 the sun ; the rotation of sun and planets ; the revo- 

 lution and rotation of satellites; the comparative 

 densities of the heavenly bodies ; the materials in the 

 tails of comets ; the rings of Saturn, and other celes- 

 tial phenomena. Newton, finding no matter between 

 the planets to maintain the community of their move- 

 ments, asserted that the immediate hand of God had 

 instituted the arrangement without the intervention 

 of the forces of Nature. His disciple Kant now under- 

 took to explain an additional number of phenomena 



