THE PRIME RESULTANT 113 



11. Commensurateness of orbits, conformably with 

 the laws of equilibrium and of falling bodies combined. 



12. Slow, gradual acceleration of the orbital times 

 of revolution in accordance with the law of falling bodies, 

 the evidence thereof being distinctly perceptible in the 

 phenomena of the excessive progression of Mercury's 

 perihelion, the rotation of the apses and the acceleration 

 of the moon's mean motion. 



Thus does the introduction of the Prime Resultant 

 into astronomical theory justify its entrance by explain- 

 ing, dynamically, all those numerous and amazing con- 

 cordances that Laplace sought to explain by postulating 

 the monstrosity of a self -rotating nebula. Indeed, it ex- 

 plains the rotation of all the nebulae just as effectively, 

 for these, too, are gravitational units. So are all genu- 

 ine star clusters. Even the Milky Way itself is a gravi- 

 tational unit, composed though it is of billions of separate 

 stars, seeking its equilibrium with respect to the stellar 

 resultant playing upon it from many distant universes 

 like it, so far distant, indeed, that their light dies out be- 

 fore it can reach us. The facts are not susceptible of ob- 

 servational proof, but to my vision the Galaxy is nothing 

 else than a disc of starry globes extending indefinitely be- 

 yond our keenest telescope, and revolving, like our solar 

 system, about an axis passing through its poles. 



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RETROGRADE MOTIONS 



But what of the retrograde motions ? These I divide 

 into three classes: those of comets, those of asteroids, 

 and those of satellites. 



The first of these classes involves the solution of the 

 nature and origin of the comets. These bodies, as I shall 

 later explain more fully, are fragments cast off by ex- 

 ploded stars and enter our system as fugitives from their 

 own land seeking an asylum in ours. When they first 

 make their appearance, they exhibit certain eccentricities 

 that proclaim them at once as strangers. For one thing, 

 their orbits are very elongated, with diverse inclinations, 



