INFLUENCE ON RECENT SCIENCE 87 



were fashioned all the small constituent parts of mat- 

 ter which now compose not only all terrestrial and 

 celestial bodies but also the interstellar spaces. While 

 we do not know the actual size of these particles, as 

 they were originally or as they are now after they have 

 suffered changes, some growing smaller by division and 

 others larger by the accretion of many into one from 

 causes which will be described later; yet their first 

 size must have been the exact average of all the con- 

 stituent particles now comprising the universe. God 

 also caused these primordial particles to move, and 

 with equal force in two diverse fashions : each to rotate 

 about its own center to form the constituent elements 

 of the interstellar spaces, or, as Descartes calls them, 

 the fluid body of the heavens, and many to revolve to- 

 gether about common axes, creating vortices whose 

 centers are the nuclei of the sun and fixed stars in the 

 heavens. The velocity of this uniform motion was the 

 average of all the diverse motions existing now, so 

 that the quantity of motion or momentum has remained 

 constant throughout all time. 



Although these primordial particles were of equal 

 size and motion, they could not have been spherical in 

 shape, since a pile of spheres does not fill a space and 

 there must be no vacuum. But whatever their initial 

 figure may have been, they have in the course of time 

 become exact spheres. The cause of this change of 

 shape is, that the force, by which they were first moved, 



