370 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pt. u. 



According to Olbers, the discoverer of Pallas and Vesta, 

 this is not a case of arrested development, but these little 

 bodies are merely the fragments of an ancient well-developed 

 planet, which has been in some way exploded. But this 

 hypothesis, though countenanced by Mr. Spencer, seems to 

 me unsatisfactory. In Mr. Spencer's essay, it is closely con- 

 nected with the hypothesis of a gaseous nucleus for all the 

 planets, which, though there ingeniously elaborated, seems to 

 me as yet too doubtful to serve as a basis for further explana- 

 tions. And even granting the hypothesis, it would be 

 necessary further to show why in this planet alone the out- 

 ward pressure of the gaseous nucleus should have overcome 

 the resistance of the solidified crust. I believe that the 

 problem is much nearer a solution when we treat it as a case 

 of arrested development ; for on this view the peculiar fate 

 of the ancestral ring may be at least partially explained by 

 a reference to the perturbing attraction exerted upon it by 

 Jupiter. 



When we reflect upon the immensity of the distances 

 which separate the outer planets from each other, even in 

 conjunction, we perceive that during the earlier stages of 

 nebular contraction no planet was in danger of being dis- 

 turbed in its formation by the attraction of its next outer 

 neighbour and predecessor. But as the increasing equatorial 

 protuberance of the solar spheroid began to result in the 

 formation of larger and larger planets, and as the formation 

 of planets began, according to the law of Titius, to occur at 

 shorter and shorter intervals, there began to be some danger 

 of such disturbance. There was no chance for a catastrophe, 

 however, until the time when the asteroid-ring was detached. 

 The enormous Jupiter-ring was at least 370,000,000 miles 

 removed from Saturn, besides which its huge mass, implying 

 powerful gravitative force among its constituent parts, served 

 further to insure its equilibrium. Hence it ran little risk of 

 incurring disaster in the course of its planetary development 



