FORM. 55 



it draws nearer to the sun, extinguishes in itself by its 

 own power the negative pole, and produces on the con- 

 trary the positive pole, or becomes a sun ; and that, as 

 it removes itself from the sun, it again extinguishes the 

 positive solar pole, and generates the negative planetary 

 pole within itself. This substantial production of alter- 

 nating poles upon the planet takes place through the 

 diversity of its surface as water and land, through the 

 oblique position of its axis, whereby summer and winter 

 are produced, through the processes, or through the life 

 that is upon it, through the processes of decomposition 

 and combination effected by water, through the revival and 

 death of vegetation, and even the white colour of snow. 

 The planet discharges its pole in the neighbourhood of 

 the sun, like a cork pellet, and reloads of itself at a dis- 

 tance from the sun ; and thus oscillates to and fro, like 

 the hammer in an electrical bell. The course of the 

 planets takes place with the greatest ease. It is every- 

 where no force of weight, of impulse, but of the easiest 

 self-motion. The planet revolves by its own force to 

 and from the sun, like the blood circulates to and from 

 the heart. 



236. The planet cannot, however, be diverted from 

 its course, because the other heavenly bodies, probably 

 the comets, do not act mechanically but only polarly upon 

 it. By means of this polarity they maintain themselves 

 always at a distance, even as the sun keeps itself at a 

 distance from the planets. In addition to this, the polar 

 tension between the comet and the sun is stronger than 

 between the comet and the planets. The perturbations 

 of the planets depend upon their polar relations to each 

 other. Although the planets have a centrifugal tendency, 

 they are not thrown by a prodigious mechanical force in 

 the direction of the tangent, and then drawn back by an 

 attractive force of the sun, that has no import or meaning ; 

 but they course in a playful manner round the sun. A 

 theory of attraction of this kind has no physical sense. 

 Such an attraction is a Qualitas occulta, an angel which flies 



