THE ASTRONOMICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 353 



or observation bring forward any indications that the 

 idea is not only a theoretical possibility, but an actual 

 reality, then the mode of thought now so successfully 

 used viz., that of transferring phenomena belonging to 

 molar dimensions, and exemplified in the physical lab- 

 oratory, into cosmic or molecular space by a process of 

 enlarging or of reducing would become inapplicable. 

 Mathematics indeed would not fail, but our ordinary 

 geometry and the physical model and mechanism would 

 fail : we should probably still be able to calculate, 

 though not to represent, those phenomena of immeasur- 

 able dimensions. 



As it is, the first great example of calculating and pre- 

 dicting the phenomena of an unreachable world was 

 Newton's successful attempt to explain the movements 

 of the moon, and other cosmical bodies, by using the 

 phenomena of falling bodies on the surface of the earth 

 described by Galileo and Huygens : and he was rewarded so. 



Difficulty of 



by the discovery of a universal law of attraction, which measuring 



gravitation 



would probably never have been discovered by experi- directl y- 

 ments carried on within molar dimensions, the mass of 

 the earth being so immeasurably greater than that of 

 any molar masses under our control. It quite escapes 

 our observation that in the action and reaction of the 

 falling stone the immensity of the earth's mass is com- 

 pensated by the vanishing distance through which the 

 earth moves when attracted by the stone. Thus the 

 astronomical view came to the rescue of physical or molar 

 experiments, helped to explain them, and indicated the 

 manner in which cosmical forces could be measured 

 even on the surface of the earth. The pendulum experi- 

 VOL. i. z 



