106 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE m 



assertion that the notion of a body acting where 

 it is not, is one that no competent thinker could 

 entertain, is antagonistic to the whole current 

 coDception of attractive and repulsive forces, and 

 therefore of " the attractive force of gravitation." 

 What, then, was that labour of unsurpassed mag- 

 nitude and excellence and of immortal influence 

 which Newton did perform ? In the first place, 

 Newton defined the laws, rules, or observed order 

 of the phenomena of motion, which come under 

 oar daily observation, with greater precision than 

 had been before attained ; and, by following out, 

 with marvellous power and subtlety, the mathe- 

 matical consequences of these rules, he almost 

 created the modern science of pure mechanics. 

 In the second place, applying exactly the same 

 method to the explication of the facts of astro- 

 nomy as that which was applied a century and a 

 half later to the facts of geology by Lyell, he set 

 himself to solve the following problem. Assuming 

 that all bodies, free to move, tend to approach 

 one another as the earth and the bodies on it do ; 

 assuming that the strength of that tendency is 

 directly as the mass and inversely as the squares 

 of the distances ; assuming that the laws of 

 motion, determined for terrestrial bodies, hold 

 good throughout the universe ; assuming that 

 the planets and their satellites were created and 

 placed at their observed mean distances, and that 

 each received a certain impulse from the Creator ; 



