372 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [l-r. it 



trary, revolve in planes of quite various degrees of inclina- 

 tion, the orbit of Pallas rising above the ecliptic a.t an angle 

 of thirty-four degrees. As the disturbing attraction of 

 Jupiter, however various in direction, would seem to have 

 been exerted wholly in one plane, I am unable to account for 

 this diversity of inclinations. Yet in spite of this short- 

 coming in the hypothesis — which might perhaps be removed 

 by some one more thoroughly conversant with dynamics — all 

 the other circumstances in the case point unmistakeably to 

 the forcible rupture of the genetic ring by the attraction 

 exerted by Jupiter ; and thus it would seem that, just when 

 such an untoward event in the history of the solar system 

 might have been expected to occur, it did occur. 



Supposing this explanation to be sound in principle, it is 

 quite easy to show why such an event has not occurred sub- 

 sequently. The next ring — the one which gave rise to Mars 

 — must have been more than twice as thick as the genetic 

 ring of the asteroids, and consequently better fitted to resist 

 a strain from without. And, moreover, being 115,000,000 

 miles farther removed from Jupiter, the latter planet could 

 exert upon it only four-ninths of the disturbing force which it 

 had exerted upon the asteroid-ring. Thus the Mars-ring was 

 permitted to develope into a planet. In turn, the small size of 

 Mars prevented him from exerting any disastrous perturbing 

 force upon the ring which gave rise to the earth, though his 

 distance from that ring could not have exceeded 50,000,000 

 miles. A simple computation will show that Mars could 

 exert upon the earth-ring not much more than one-hundredth 

 part of the attraction exercised by Jupiter upon the ances- 

 tral ring of the asteroids. On the other hand, had the mass 

 of Mars been one twenty-fifth as great as that of Jupiter — 

 that is, thirteen times as great as the mass of the earth — he 

 might have prevented the formation of the planet on which 

 we live. And had the mass of Mars been equal to that of 

 Jupiter, he might have dealt destruction to all the planetary 



