Manchester Memoirs, Vol. liv. (1909), No. 1. 3 



Neptune. So accustomed have these writers been to 

 viewing the more exact relations of Kepler's laws with 

 the law of gravitation, and the extreme refinements 

 involved in the measurement of these relations, that their 

 power of forming a just estimate of probabilities becomes 

 atrophied by disuse, to the great hindrance of the science 

 which they endeavour to advance. This habit of mind is 

 all the more deplorable in its consequences from the fact 

 of its being unsuspected, and associated with attainments 

 of the highest order in men occupying important positions 

 in observatories and seats of learning, where the influence 

 of their peculiar idiosyncracies makes itself felt through 

 a long course of years.* 



6. Bode's law, briefly stated, is as follows : — The radii 

 vectores, or the relative planetary distances from the sun 

 proceed in multiple proportions, each one after the second 

 being double the one which precedes it, and, by adding the 

 constant 0'4 to each progression, we obtain approximately 

 the distances of the planets, as shown in Table i. 



7. The parallelism of the discovery of new planets 

 through the law of multiple proportions of the distances, 

 and the discovery of new elementary substances through 

 the law of multiple proportions of the atomic weights, as 

 shown in my former papers,f will not fail to be evident to 

 serious investigators in the natural sciences. 



8. The correlation of a series of nebular condensations, 

 represented by the planetary distances on the one hand, 

 and the further condensation of the nebular substance into 



*The attacks made by astronomical writers on Bode's law have been 

 discussed at greater length in my paper publislied in the Manchester 

 Memoirs, vol. 39, 1895, 



■^Manchester Memoirs, vols. 30, 39, 40, 46, 48, 52, 1878-1907, Chemical 

 ■ Neius, vol. 38, pp. 66, 96, 107, 187S, FhiL Mag., (6), vol. 16, p. 824, 1908. 



