PLANETARY MOTIONS 55 



It is upon this abstract, metaphysical, arbitrary, un- 

 understood ' ' law ' ' that the world of science has erected 

 its proudest generalization, the doctrine of the conserva- 

 tion of energy, alias, the persistence of force, correlation 

 of forces, transmutation of energy, mechanical equiva- 

 lents etc. high sounding phrases that all alike decree the 

 death of Nature. In the following pages I shall' peremp- 

 torily challenge this doctrine as absurd and unworkable, 

 and a mill-stone around the neck of Science. ' ' Beware of 

 him of whom all men speak well, ' ' exhorted the ancient 

 seer. Beware, say I, of this doctrine of conservation 

 which all the world extols. I expect to prove to you, dear 

 reader, that this mysterious conservation of moment of 

 momentum is as simple a physical phenomenon in essence 

 as the rotating of a top ; also, that the molar movements 

 of the heavenly bodies are not accomplished without the 

 expenditure of power, but with a power, GRAVITATION, that 

 is at once creative and coordinating. 



To sum up, the planetary theory of Newton holds, in 

 effect : That the planets are revolving around the sun by 

 reason of certain original rectilinear motions having 

 miraculously belonged to them under some pre-existing 

 order of nature ; that they travel through a medium pos- 

 sessing objective existence without substance ; that they 

 can change their courses and bear loads without loss of 

 momentum ; that they have fortuitously happened to ally 

 themselves to the same sun, to have hit upon approxi- 

 mately the same plane, to be traveling in the same direc- 

 tion, to have velocities bearing a fixed ratio to each other 

 and to their solar distances, and finally, that after 

 hundreds of millions of years no accidents have happened 

 to any of them, by meteoric collisions or otherwise, to dis- 

 turb this precarious arrangement. It neglects to take 

 into account the factor of the stellar attractions, the sun 's 

 movement in space, the age of the sun and earth, or the 

 rotation of nebulae. It does not clinch the law of gravita- 

 tion, or explain the moon 's secular acceleration, or solve 

 the problem of the tides, or account for meteors, or ex- 

 plain the relationship between comets, asteroids, and 

 planets, or give the physical basis for the phenomenon of 



