134 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



removal of the resistance by conscientiously exhausting 

 the air. Having carefully gone through all these ma- 

 neuvers and satisfied himself, for the last time, that 

 Nature was now effectually gagged, he called to her: 

 " Prove to me now in the wink of an eye that these ob- 

 jects, as they fall through this tube, obey your boasted 

 law of equilibrium. If you fail, I will brand you for all 

 time to come as the most inconstant of your sex. ' ' New- 

 ton made no allowance, nor wished to make any, for the 

 brevity of the time, the extreme shortness of the fall, the 

 persistence of retinal impressions, the notorious uncer- 

 tainty of the human eye in general, his own mental bias 

 all he aimed at was to confirm his already fixed opinion 

 and to clinch his ill-fated tidal hypothesis. But Nature, 

 after generations of misrepresentation passed, finds voice 

 at last through Kelvin, Darwin, Young and the rest and 

 proclaims that the hypothesis is "as false as can be." 

 Alas, she has been silent too long, and not even her 

 mouthpieces heed her testimony ! 



Ask any modern physicist whether a shell fired from 

 a mortar observes the law of lowest center, and he will 

 unhesitatingly answer, yes. He cannot see even the path 

 of the shell, much less the gyrations of the missile upon 

 itself, but for all that he is none the less positive. Why? 

 Because he intuitively reasons to the truth beyond this 

 negative evidence. He will sensibly argue, "I cannot 

 perceive grass grow, but I know it does grow. I cannot 

 detect the motion of the stars, and for ages mankind be- 

 lieved them absolutely fixed, but science has now demon- 

 strated that they do move, and at astounding velocities. 

 With my naked eye I cannot see animalcules, but the mi- 

 croscope reveals to me their existence". All this he will 

 say, and more ; yet, in the end, he will reiterate with una- 

 bashed finality, ' 1 1 cannot descry any sign on the part of 

 the object falling in the vacuum to seek its lowest center 

 of gravity, ergo, I deny that it does so. ' ' 



If there is anything that science can take just pride 

 in, it is in those inventions which have extended human 

 knowledge into domains beyond our direct sense percep- 



