SOLAR SYSTEM. 81 



impulse which has been assumed by astronomers ? 

 And if so, what extent of orbit would the sun 

 require to describe in absolute space, and with what 

 velocity would the sun require to move in that orbit, 

 that so the tractile force which thus becomes tangential 

 would cause those bodies to describe their respective 

 orbits about the sun ? 



144. If the sun in his motion of translation in 

 space imparts to each of the planetary bodies a 

 tractile impulse, is this impulse imparted and ex- 

 pended with every revolution of a planet about the 

 sun? 



145. How is it that the sun's motion of translation 

 in space at the estimated rate of four hundred and 

 twenty-two thousand miles in twenty-four hours; also 

 the tractile force which the sun in his course imparts 

 to the planetary bodies ; and also the repulsive 

 force by which the nebulous atmosphere of a comet 

 is impelled behind it, as it approaches the sun, but 

 in advance of it as it recedes from that body, are all 

 ignored by astronomers in their rationale of the solar 

 system whereas in their explication of that sys- 

 tem a primal projectile impulse, an unresisting 

 medium, and the sun's immobility in space, are 

 hypothetically assumed by them ? 



146. If the corpuscular theory of light be the 



G 



