16 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



power! Desirable though it may be nay, commend- 

 able to introduce short-cut methods for the purpose of 

 getting at the results, the issue here is not one of expedi- 

 ency, but of philosophic truth. Why the necessity of 

 this decimal? To this question, crucial as it is, New- 

 tonianism has no defense to offer but the familiar excuse 

 of the shoolboy : ' * It 's the only way I can get the answer 

 in the book. ' ' Incidentally, please to note that Mercury ? s 

 perihelion problem, like that of the lunar acceleration, 

 must also in some fundamental manner be governed by 

 the law of falling bodies, as is evidenced by the fact that 

 it is the exponent that requires ' ' doctoring ' ' in order to 

 attain the desired result. 



But not only does modern astronomy, albeit regret- 

 fully, thus impugn the great law of gravitation, it even 

 repudiates the integrity of the principle itself! It is a 

 long and tangled chain of ratiocination by which this 

 desperate conclusion has been arrived at, but it is con- 

 sistently Newtonian throughout. The following pas- 

 sages are taken from the work of Professor Frederick 

 Soddy, of Glasgow University (Matter and Energy, pp. 

 19 and 112) : 



Before the doctrine of its conservation was established, 

 energy was mysterious and unaccountable in its comings and go- 

 ings. To-day it is no longer a mystery. The unaccounted-for 

 appearance or disappearance of a quantity of energy in any 

 process, however complex, would rouse as much scientific interest 

 as the mysterious appearance or disappearance of matter. When 

 it appears it must come from somewhere, and when it disappears 

 it must go somewhere. Gradually this Law of Conservation has 

 supplied the physicist with an experimental test of reality in a 

 changing universe. What appears and disappears mysteriously, 

 giving no clue of its origin or destination, is outside of his 

 province. To him it has no physical existence. What is con- 

 served has physical existence, whether it is tangible and ponder- 

 able like matter, or intangible and imponderable like energy. 

 Early writers, when they really meant what is now called energy, 

 often used the term force ; and the idea of force, as will later be 

 discussed, has confused the issues and retarded the growth of 

 science to an almost incalculable extent. Carlyle says, meaning 

 energy "Force, Force, everywhere Force ; we ourselves a myster- 

 ious Force in the centre of that "There is not a leaf rotting on 



