2 Wilde, New Binary Progression of Platietary Distances. 



attraction of gravitation, although strictly correlated, are 

 as distinct properties of body as dynamic electricity is from 

 the static force of magnetism, as each of these forces 

 manifests itself and may be treated upon independently of 

 the others. 



3. As the moving and attractive forces of planetary 

 bodies are correlatively equal, and are expressed by the 

 same numbers, the radius vector of Mercury appeared to 

 me the most natural, as well as the most convenient unit 

 to which the other planetary distances should be referred. 

 A farther reason for this selection was the fact that the 

 terrestrial unit is an obvious survival of the geocentric 

 system of the universe which has dominated science for 

 ages, and still retains its hold on ultra-anthropocentric 

 writers on astronomy and astrophysics. 



4. An apparently adverse feature, however, of the 

 change of unit in the new table, was the excision of 

 the binary progression of the planetary distances known 

 as Bode's law, which, as Airy and Herschel have rightly 

 said, " is not founded upon any theory which connects it 

 either with Kepler's laws, the gravitating force, or any 

 other known physical law." 



5. Notwithstanding the brilliant results which followed 

 the adoption of Bode's Law by independent thinkers, in 

 the discoveries of the minor planets and of Neptune, the 

 complete isolation of the law from all physical causes 

 (which admits only of a teleological interpretation), 

 appears to have created a strong prejudice, amounting to 

 hostility, in the minds of eminent astronomical writers to 

 disparage and obscure what they have been pleased to 

 term Bode's " supposed " or " so called " law of planetary 

 distances, ostensibly on account of minor differences from 

 the observations, and its discordance with the distance of 



