THE PRIME RESULTANT 117 



that body is continually shifting from one side of the 

 ecliptic to the other, and that the sun's attraction upon it 

 is forever, though vainly, trying to bring it into the plane 

 of the ecliptic, a condition that is no less true of the equa- 

 torial protuberance. 



Newton's Precession Theory Denied 



Now, the earth rotates on its axis once daily, thus 

 bringing every inch of its equatorial bulge fairly under 

 the sun's attractive influence. The cycle of causation is 

 complete, why should not the cycle of effect be, alsot 

 Can you think of any sound reason why the earth's axis, 

 if it is affected at all by this operation, should not make 

 daily a complete circle of nutation, however minute, 

 rather than the 1-365 part of the 1-26,000 part of a big 

 circle f Again, the earth revolves around the sun in 365 

 days, presenting the equator in like manner to the sun's 

 attractive influence at every angle of her axial inclination. 

 Here the annual cycle of causation is complete, why 

 should not its cycle of effect be annually complete alsof 

 Why, indeed, should 26,000 complete cycles of causation, 

 for no intelligible reason, save themselves up to make 

 one big circle instead of 26,000 sucessive minute ones, and 

 why, indeed, should the radius of that peculiarly gener- 

 ated big circle be so amazingly identical with the earth's 

 axial inclination ? What would you say of a man who, in 

 cool deliberation, would protest that 9,490,000 of our days 

 and nights (26,000 of our summers and winters) should 

 yield us a single day of daylight 13,000 years long and a 

 single night of 13,000 years! Yet thus, in effect, is how 

 Newton reasoned in this case. 



Now as to the coincidence alluded to a moment since. 

 Are the causes of precession assigned by Newton the 

 causes also of the tilt of the earth's axis? Assuredly, they 

 are not. For Newton 's explanation of precession is, that 

 because of the previously-existing obliquity of the equa- 

 tor, the causes of the former phenomenon were called into 

 play. In short, his explanation of precession presup- 

 poses the inclination of the axis as an independent fact. 



