IV 



THE PRIME RESULTANT 



LAPLACE was right in assuming that the number- 

 less concordances exhibited in our planetary system 

 cannot be the results of blind chance. So far as 

 the principles of the Newtonian system go, the planets 

 are restricted only to orbits having the form of conic 

 sections. These orbits might be as elongated as those of 

 comets, or as inclined as the earth's axis, or possess any 

 other eccentricity or tilt you please. Some might revolve 

 clockwise, others contra-clockwise, others, still, straight 

 up and down, backward or forward, through the celestial 

 poles, for all the light Newtonian theories throw upon the 

 matter. The fact, therefore, that the planets do not re- 

 volve thus indiscriminately, but conspicuously seek the 

 same plane, revolve in the same direction, rotate on their 

 axes in the same sense, and describe near-circle orbits, is 

 decidedly too striking and significant to be dismissed as 

 mere coincidence, and demands more than a teleological 

 explanation. Indeed, what safe confidence can be placed 

 in any cosmic theory that fails, as Newton's confessedly 

 does, to clear up these remarkable concordances as one of 

 its primary tasks and tests I 



It is as plain as the noonday sun that the explanation 

 we are groping for is a dynamical one, one, too, suffi- 

 ciently comprehensive and general to compass in its 

 mighty grasp the whole length and breadth of the system, 

 so as to ensure that the effects it brings about may be 

 universally consistent. The new factor, moreover, must 



