12 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



professors who have grown gray in the teaching of this 

 vicious and altogether erroneous doctrine have doubtless 

 become hardened to its monstrosity, for they seem to pro- 

 claim it in and out of season with every mark of proud 

 paternity ! For my part, I regard such a conclusion as, on 

 the face of it, so gross a reductio ad absurdum as by itself 

 to refute the entire process of ratiocination by which it 

 has been reached, even if in its wake lay, one after 

 another, complete solutions of all the paramount prob- 

 lems above considered, instead of the lengthening trail of 

 incompetence and failure that really does mark it. 



Recapitulating, then, we find our modern Argonauts 

 of science starting out to explore and interpret the uni- 

 verse by, first of all, methodically casting overboard that 

 heretofore faithful compass of mankind, the natural law 

 of cause and effect ; stigmatizing, as behind the times, 

 those of us who continue to cling to the belief that 

 mechanical effects, whether in the skies or in the labora- 

 tory, can derive existence only from preexisting causes ; 

 decrying the notion that gravitation is an objective 

 reality, and in its stead substituting the metaphysical ab- 

 straction of ' ' position ' ' ; proclaiming by precept the law 

 of the inverse square, and inconsistently employing an 

 admittedly empirical formula in practice ; setting up, one 

 after another, and again and again, spurious hypotheses 

 as to the origin of cosmic heat, seemingly for the mere 

 sport of knocking them down ; tendering us a job lot of 

 cosmogonies from which to make choice, not one of which 

 but flouts Nature and her laws ; promulgating a theory of 

 tides, then conclusively disproving it, and afterward, 

 knowing its falsity, continuing nevertheless to teach it as 

 true and as a ' ' guide ' ' to the observations ; depending 

 helplessly upon mechanical implements rather than upon 

 the intelligence to interpret the planets ; asseverating the 

 random, haphazard and spontaneous nature of stellar 

 motions, and in the same breath professing to be search- 

 ing out the laws governing this randomness ; and, finally, 

 impugning the integrity of Nature and recklessly con- 

 demning her to ignominious death ! 



