NEW MECHANICS AND ASTRONOMY. 245 



those that come from the opposite direction, so that 

 the compensation reah'zed in a state of repose no longer 

 exists. The calculated resistance is proportional to S, 

 to p, and to v. Now we know that the heavenly bodies 

 move as if they met with no resistance, and the pre- 

 cision of the observations enables us to assign a limit 

 to the resistance. 



This resistance varying as Spv, while the attraction 

 varies as S Jpv, we see that the relation of the resist- 

 ance to the square of the attraction is in inverse ratio 

 of the product Sv. 



We get thus an inferior limit for the product Sv. 

 We had already a superior limit for S (by the absorp- 

 tion of the attraction by the bodies it traverses). We 

 thus get an inferior limit for the velocity v, which must 

 be at least equal to 24.10^'^ times the velocity of light. 



From this we can deduce p and the amount of heat 

 produced. This would suffice to elevate the tempera- 

 ture 10-^ degrees a second. In any given time the 

 Earth would receive lO'*^ as much heat as the Sun 

 emits in the same time, and I am not speaking of 

 the heat that reaches the Earth from the Sun, but of 

 the heat radiated in all directions. It is clear that 

 the Earth could not long resist such conditions. 



We shall be led to results no less fantastic if, in 

 opposition to Darwin's views, we endow Lesage's 

 corpuscles with an elasticity that is imperfect but 

 not nil. It is true that the vis viva of the corpuscles 

 will not then be entirely converted into heat, but the 

 attraction produced will equally be less, so that it 

 will only be that portion of the vis viva converted 

 into heat that will contribute towards the production 

 of attraction, and so we shall get the same result. A 



