COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



position against which the chances are as infinity 

 to one — the one set must eventually prevail 

 over the other. And after some such manner as 

 this our solar nebula must have acquired its 

 definite rotation from west to east. 



Let us next observe the mechanical conse- 

 quences of this rotation. No matter what may 

 have been the«primitive shape of the nebula — 

 and, if we may judge from the analogy of irre- 

 solvable nebulae now existing, it may very likely 

 have been as amorphous as any cloud in a sum- 

 mer sky — no matter what its primitive shape, 

 it must at last inevitably assume the form pe- 

 culiar to rotating bodies in which the particles 

 move freely upon each other. It must become 

 an oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles and 

 bulging at the equator, because at the equator 

 the centrifugal tendency generated by rotation 

 is greatest. Furthermore, as the mass contracts 

 it must rotate faster and faster ; for as the total 

 quantity of rotation is unalterable, the velocity 

 must increase as the space traversed diminishes. 



In accordance with these principles of me- 

 chanics, as our solar nebula continued to radiate 

 heat and contract, it continued to rotate with 

 ever-increasing velocity, its poles became more 

 and more flattened, and its equatorial zone pro- 

 truded more and more, until at last the centri- 

 fugal tendency at the equator became greater 

 than the force of gravity at that place. Then 

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