4 THE HAEMONIES OF NATURE, 



For thousands of years Science itself remained enthralled by 

 these delusive appearances, until at length the master-mind of 

 Copernicus reduced our planet to the rank of an humble follower 

 of that sun which it had so long appeared to rule. 



This great man first convincingly proved that the sun does 

 not revolve round the earth, but that we and all the planets cir- 

 cle round the sun ; and that the earth, by turning on her axis 

 every twenty-four hours from west to east, produces that 

 apparent movement of the starry heavens from east to west 

 which had deceived all previous astronomers. Where formerly 

 darkness and error prevailed, and the most ingenious and com- 

 plicated hypotheses had been unable to explain the intricate 

 motions of the planets, the mystery was now solved at once in 

 the clearest and most simple manner. 



Building still further on the Copernican system, the illus- 

 trious Kepler next showed that the planets do not move in cir- 

 cles but in ellipses round the sun, and discovered the laws which 

 regulate the swiftness and proportions of their orbits. Twelve 

 years after this great man's death our immortal Newton was 

 born, who proved that the movements of all the celestial bodies 

 flow from the supreme law of universal gravitation, or the 

 mutual attraction of bodies according to the proportion of their 

 masses and distances. 



By means of this fundamental law which regulates the move- 

 ments of the stars as well as the fall of terrestrial bodies, the 

 course of waters, the motions of the pendulum, and the direction 

 of the load-line it was now possible to solve many most diffi- 

 cult problems, which until then had baffled the sagacity of the 

 greatest mathematicians and astronomers, to explain the pre- 

 cession of the equinoxes, to determine the weight and the 

 masses of the various bodies of the solar system, and finally to 

 calculate the perturbations resulting from the mutual attrac- 

 tions of the planets. 



The word perturbation might possibly lead us to fear, that at 

 a period however remote the laws which maintain the planets in 

 their course might ultimately be overcome by counteracting 

 forces, and an irreparable catastrophe be the consequence ; but 

 the calculations of Laplace have proved that all alarms on this 

 subject are perfectly groundless, for the planetary perturbations 

 are as subject to eternal laws as all the other motions of the 



