258 SCIENCE IN 8HOKT CHAPTERS. 



ance with the customary ingenuity of mathematical theo- 

 rists, worked out the necessary mathematical conditions, 

 and states with unhesitating mathematical assurance that 

 " It is as sure that collisions must occur between great 

 masses moving through space, as it is that ships, steered 

 without intelligence directed to prevent collision, could 

 not cross and recross the Atlantic for thousands of years 

 with immunity from collision." 



The author of* the paper in the Cornhill denies this 

 very positively, and without going into the mathematical 

 details, points out the basis upon which it may be mathe- 

 matically refuted viz., that all such worlds are traveling in 

 fixed or regular orbits around their primaries or suns, 

 while each of these primaries travels in its own necessary 

 path, carrying with it all its attendants, which still move 

 about him, just as though he had no motion of his own. 



These are the conclusions of Newtonian dynamics, the sub- 

 lime simplicity of which contrasts so curiously with the com- 

 plex dreams of the modern atom-splitters, and which make 

 a further and still more striking contrast by their exact and 

 perfect accordance with actual and visible phenomena. 



Newton has taught us that there can be no planets trav- 

 eling at random like the Sir TV. Thomson's imaginary 

 ships with blind pilots, and by following up his reasoning, 

 we reach the conclusion, that among all the countless mil- 

 lions of worlds that people the infinity of space, there is 

 no more risk of collision than there is between any two of 

 the bodies that constitute our own solar system. 



All the observations of astronomers, both before and 

 since the discovery of the telescope, confirm this conclu- 

 sion. The long nightly watching of the Chaldean shep- 

 herds, the star-counting, star-gauging, star-mapping, and 

 other laborious gazing of mediaeval and modern astrono- 

 mers, have failed to discover any collision, or any motion 

 tending to collision, among the myriads of heavenly bodies 

 whose positions and movements have been so faithfully and 

 diligently studied. Thus, the hypothesis of creation which 

 demands the destruction of two Avorlds in order to effect 

 the sowing of a seed, is as inconsistent with sound dynam- 

 ics as it is repugnant to common sense. 



