LAW OF GRAVITATION. 229 



deny the fact because we cannot assign the 

 grounds of her preference. What is there, it is 

 asked, to determine the magnitude of the whole 

 force at any fixed distance ? We cannot tell ; 

 yet the force is of a certain definite intensity 

 and no other. 



Finally Clairault observes, that we have, in 

 cohesion, capillary attraction, and various other 

 cases, examples of forces varying according to 

 other laws than the inverse square ; and that 

 therefore this cannot be the only possible law. 



The discrepancy between observation and 

 theory which gave rise to this controversy was 

 removed, as has been already stated, by a more 

 exact calculation : and thus, as Laplace observes, 

 in this case the metaphysician turned out to be 

 right and the mathematician to be wrong. But 

 most persons, probably, who are familiar with such 

 trains of speculation, will allow, that Clairault had 

 the best of the argument, and that the attempts 

 to show the law of gravitation to be necessarily 

 what it is, are fallacious and unsound. 



8. We may observe, however, that the law of 

 gravitation according to the inverse square of the 

 distance, which thus regulates the motions of the 

 solar system, is not confined to that province of 

 the universe, as has been shown by recent re- 

 searches. It appears by the observations and 

 calculations of Sir John Herschel, that several 

 of the stars, called doable stars, consist of a pair 



