COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



ceptions than to their verification. And in fact 

 we know that many refused to accept the dis- 

 covery of the accelerated and retarded motion 

 of the planets, on the subjective ground that it 

 was "undignified " for heavenly bodies to hurry 

 and slacken their pace according to Kepler*s 

 law.^ Now mark the different behaviour of the 

 objective method. Attaching a higher value to 

 ascei^tained conformity with observation than to 

 any presumed subjective congruity of concep- 

 tions, Newton recognized the " unnatural " el- 

 liptic motion of the planets and the " unnatural " 

 variations of that motion as residual facts which 

 needed to be explained by a verifiable hypo- 

 thesis. Since the planets are deflected at every 

 instant from the rectilinear paths in which their 

 own momentum would forever carry them, 



^ On similar grounds the Aristotelians denied the existence 

 of the solar spots ; it being impossible **that the Eye of the 

 Universe should suffer from ophthalmia." See Proctor, The 

 Suny p. 163. — ** How can we admit that Nature could so 

 restrict herself as to form all organic and inorganic combina- 

 tions in the mould of four substances, chosen at hazard, — 

 hydrogen, hydrochloric acid, water, and ammonia, — and to 

 produce nothing but variations on these four themes ? ' ' Re- 

 mark of Kolbe, cited in Wurtz, Introduction to Chemical 

 Philosophy, p. 97. — And in like manner we sometimes hear 

 silly people reject the Darwinian theory on grounds of '* dig- 

 nity," — it being supposed that we are, in some incompre- 

 hensible way, ** degraded" by the discovery that our remote 

 ancestors were dumb beasts. 



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