76 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



as he pretended, the moon's present motion by a series 

 of assumptions upon assumptions, Mr. Darwin is now 

 in duty bound to prove those assumptions, namely, the 

 reason of the earth's original molten condition, how it 

 came by its rotary motion in the first instance, why that 

 motion was so much more violent than in the case of 

 other planets presumably formed in the same way, and, 

 indeed, how the moon managed to get a forward rota- 

 tion when flung from the earth instead of a backward 

 one as his premises logically dictate. In justice to Mr. 

 Darwin I will quote his own words anent this theory, 

 showing that he is not himself a dupe of his own imag- 

 inings : 



"There is nothing to tell us whether this 

 theory affords the true explanation of the birth 

 of the moon, and I say that it is only a wild 

 speculation incapable of verification/'* 



Now., I do not object to speculations, even to wild 

 ones ; per se, for where all men are so densely in the dark, 

 even a faint ray is better than nothing. What I do 

 object to, however, is that this fanciful theory, for which 

 the author himself refuses to stand sponsor, should have 

 been so generally welcomed by scientists as to obtain 

 an honored place in the astronomer's articles of faith. 

 This case is a parallel to that of Laplace's, who in 

 promulgating his Nebular Hypothesis distinctly warned 

 the world that it was but tentative and did not ex- 

 press his final conclusions; yet astronomy for a cen- 

 tury has persisted in believing it in spite of everything. 



But all this merely by way of preliminary to the 

 main point, which is, that the cause of the tides, accord- 

 ing to my way of thinking, has always been misunder- 

 stood. I do not mean by this that the sun and moon 



The Tides, page 284. 



