74 FKOM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



is forever, though vainly, trying to bring it into the plane 

 of the ecliptic, a condition that is no less true of the equa- 

 torial protuberance. 



Newton's Precession Theory Denied 



Now, the earth rotates on its axis once daily, thus 

 bringing every inch of its equatorial bulge fairly under 

 the sun's attractive influence. The cycle of causation is 

 complete, why should not the cycle of effect be, also? 

 Can you think of any sound reason why the earth's axis, 

 if it is affected at all by this operation, should not make 

 daily a complete circle of nutation, however minute, 

 rather than the 1-365 part of the 1-26,000 part of a big 

 circle? Again, the earth revolves around the sun in 365 

 days, presenting the equator in like manner to the sun's 

 attractive influence at every angle of her axial inclination. 

 Here the annual cycle of causation is complete, why 

 should not its cycle of effect be annually complete also? 

 Why, indeed, should 26,000 complete cycles of causation, 

 for no intelligible reason, save themselves up to make 

 one big circle instead of 26,000 sucessive minute ones, and 

 why, indeed, should the radius of that peculiarly gener- 

 ated big circle be so amazingly identical with the earth 's 

 axial inclination ? What would you say of a man who, in 

 cool deliberation, would protest that 9,490,000 of our days 

 and nights (26,000 of our summers and winters) should 

 yield us a single day of daylight 13,000 years long and a 

 single night of 13,000 years? Yet thus, in effect, is how 

 Newton reasoned in this case. 



THE TRUE CAUSE OF PRECESSION 



Every action has its equal and opposite reaction. 

 This is not only Newton's second law, but it is likewise 

 the fundamental principle of the gyroscope. The solar 

 system, therefore, must, of necessity, recoil backward as 

 a unit by way of compensating for its general forward 

 gyration around its own axis, the sun. The next ques- 

 tions then to arise are : Does the solar system recoil in a 

 straight line, or in a curve? Why? and In what kind of a 



