COSMICAL GEOLOGY. 155 



a fact of which neither Kant nor Laplace had been aware. 

 Uniformity in the rotation of all the bodies in the solar system 

 is the fundamental conception in the theory of Laplace ; yet 

 this conception was directly contradicted by the discovery that 

 the satellites of the two planets farthest from the sun rotated 

 in a direction opposite to the direction of rotation of all other 

 known bodies in the solar system. Other weak points in the 

 theory of Laplace rendered it open to criticism. Kant had 

 supposed that the atoms f primitive matter originally pos- 

 sessed the property of mutual attraction and repulsion, and a 

 whirling motion, and that they gradually attained a uniform 

 rotatory movement, while Laplace, on the other hand, had 

 assumed the rotatory movement as inherent in matter; but 

 neither Kant nor Laplace had tried to offer a satisfactory 

 explanation of the phenomena of rotation. Moreover, these 

 physicists had not attempted to explain the incandescent state 

 of certain celestial bodies ; Laplace had merely assumed that 

 matter was provided with an indefinite supply of heat, without 

 offering any scientific hypothesis for the origin of heat. Again, 

 a further contradiction was presented to the theory of Kant 

 and Laplace by the approach of comets from regions of con- 

 siderable space beyond the solar system. 



Several attempts were made to replace the theory of Kant 

 and Laplace by a more satisfactory one. One of these was 

 Madler's hypothesis in 1846, which postulated a common 

 centre for the whole universe of fixed stars, but not a central 

 sun whose superiority of mass controlled the movements of 

 other bodies. The movement of fixed stars was said to be 

 under the direction of an ideal centre of gravity. This assump- 

 tion contradicted the idea of the successive formation of rings 

 and the separation of masses of matter from a central body. 

 According to Madler, the ring-theory of Laplace could not 

 possibly be held to apply to the numerous double stars. 



The French astronomer, Faye, brings forward some re- 

 markable conceptions in his recent work, Sur I'Origine du 

 Monde, published in 1896. Faye does not accept the 

 existence of a central mass either in the case of the heaven of 

 fixed stars, or in our solar system. He supposes that originally 

 a part of the universal matter had a slow, whirling movement, 

 and that neighbouring masses of matter developed a movement 

 in a similar direction as a consequence of the action of gravita- 

 tion and mutual attraction. Thus the myriad of heavenly 



