THE INDUCTIVE OR INVERSE METHOD. 287 



countenances his objections , otherwise I should not have 

 thought them of much weight. Certainly Laplace accepts 

 Michell s views P, and if Michell be in error, it is in the 

 methods of calculation, not in the general validity of his 

 conclusions. 



Similar calculations might no doubt be applied to the 

 peculiar drifting motions which have been detected by 

 Mr. .R. A. Proctor in some of the constellations ( i. Against 

 a general tendency of stars to move in .one direction by 

 chance, the odds are very great. It is on a similar ground 

 that a considerable proper motion of the sun is found to 

 exist with immense probability, because on the average 

 the fixed stars show a tendency to move apparently from 

 one point of the heavens towards that diametrically op 

 posite. The sun s motion in the contrary direction would 

 explain this tendency, otherwise we must believe that 

 myriads of stars accidentally agree in their direction of 

 motion, or are urged by some common force from which the 

 sun is exempt. It may be said that the rotation of the 

 earth is proved in like manner, because it is immensely 

 more probable that one body would revolve than that 

 the sun, moon, planets, comets, and the whole of the stars 

 of the heavens should be whirled round the earth daily, 

 with a uniform motion superadded to their own peculiar 

 motions. This appears to be nearly the reason which led 

 Gilbert, one of the earliest English Copernicans, and in 

 every way an admirable physicist, to admit the rotation 

 of the earth, while Francis Bacon denied it r . 



In contemplating the planetary system, we are struck 

 with the similarity in direction of nearly all its move- 



History, &c., p. 334. 

 P Essai Philosophique/ p. 57. 



( i Proceedings of the Royal Society, 20 January, 1870. Philosophical 

 Magazine, 4th Series, vol. xxxix. p. 381. 



r Hallam s Literature of Europe, ist ed. vol. ii. p. 464. 



