' THE COSMICAL STRUCTURE. 125 



As each individual of these, acted upon by centrifugal force, 

 finds its equilibrium at the particular point where, by the union 

 of all, the secondary body is formed, sO the united mass of par- 

 ticles in the body thus formed, has no more tendency to draw 

 nearer to the primary than it has to emanate further from it. 



Suppose, then, any particular secondary body should be 

 violently arrested in its orbit : it would evidently sink into 

 the ethereal atmosphere of its^ primary a distance measured 

 by its previous centrifugal displacement, which, in most cases, 

 would be considerable ; but at some point between its former 

 orbit and the primary, it would attain to an exact equilibrium 

 between the attractive and emanative or repellent influences, 

 and there its inward motion would stop. If held there by 

 violence, and prevented from partaking of the general vortical 

 motion of the system, it would be to the cosmical system what 

 a mass of displaced particles, or a splinter of foreign matter, 

 would be to the human system ; and the effect would be, an 

 inflammation, suppuration, and dissolution, of the part. For, 

 it is evident that in such a case the body would accumulate 

 heat and other repellent elements from the primary, more 

 rapidly than it could relieve itself of them, and sooner or later 

 these accumulations would be beyond its powers of endurance. 

 The particles in that case would separate in detail, and would 

 either be digested and assimilated with the general mass of 

 the primary and its atmosphere, or, assuming the general revo- 

 lutionary motion of the system, would be again thrown out- 

 ward by the resultant centrifugal force, and would reaggregate 

 themselves at their original distance, and the planet would be 

 formed anew. 



For an explanation of the principles on which all rotatory 

 and orbitual motion may originate, the reader is referred to an 

 earlier stage of this treatise, in which we spoke of the first 



