GRAVITATION VERSUS INERTIA 25 



and flowingly adjusting and disposing itself and its mul- 

 tifarious parts, as a whole, into successive states of equi- 

 librium with respect to the myriad gravitational in- 

 fluences acting upon it both from within and without, 

 in short, it is any such body habitually engaged in ac- 

 commodating itself to a common center of gravity. 



Now it is plain, that since the universe in its en- 

 tirety is responsible for our system's flight, the apex 

 of that flight is just as, or even more, likely to be a 

 blank spot in the heavens as a particular star or group 

 of stars. Moreover, as the sun's position changes, his 

 direction may likewise suffer change; for he has no will 

 of his own, but passively and automatically, by the 

 shortest cut, keeps pursuing that elusive thing, his equi- 

 librium, wherever it may lead him, down the bottomless 

 well of space. 



In this equilibristic performance the sun is not 

 alone; he is only one, albeit by far the largest, body 

 in a great system, which is likewise behaving itself as 

 a gravitational unit. Each member too of the system 

 down to the minutest asteroid, is doing its "level best," 

 automatically, and by the directest route, to maintain 

 a perfect balance, not only for itself but for the sys- 

 tem, and aye, for the universe itself. Each subordinate 

 system is in turn a gravitational unit, doing its duty 

 as such to the same general purpose; each comet, we 

 shall find, is such a systemal unit. Indeed, who can 

 say how many such eddying whorls there may be in 

 the vast spaces around us, or how minute may be the 

 least of them? Contemplating upward, May not our 

 vast solar system be but a member of a systemal unit 

 still greater, and that again of one yet greater, and so 

 on, until our concept of physical infinity begins to take 

 on the definiteness of the finite, and to spell the one 

 word BALANCE ? 



