138 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



equal force because they are traveling with equal veloc- 

 ities. Two racers may easily cover the specified distance 

 in unison, but that doesn't preclude each from balancing 

 himself separately, or regulating the length of his own 

 stride. 



But even waiving all that has gone before and taking 

 the Newtonian experiment at its face value, I still take 

 exception to it, not merely because it does not reproduce 

 the cosmic conditions, which may be excusable, but be- 

 cause it does not sensibly parallel them. The Newtonian 

 deductions, in the light of the experiment, may be thus 

 itemized : 



1. Objects in vacuo, irrespective of their varying 

 densities, fall ivith precisely equal velocities. 



2. Cosmic bodies are only objects of a larger 

 growth, are constructively falling, and are falling through 

 the void of space; therefore they, also, and all their com- 

 ponent molecules fall with equal velocities. 



3. All objects, great and small, thus falling in vacuo 

 maintain throughout their descent both their initial in- 

 clinations and their original shapes. 



Let us try this conception out by analyzing a simple 

 hypothetical case : 



Imagine, if you please, that some power should ar- 

 rest the moon in her orbital flight, hold her steady for a 

 moment, and then gently drop her. According to New- 

 tonians, she would fall in one attitude straight downward 

 to the earth, where she would arrive in something less 

 than a week's time. Suppose, again, that the same 

 power that arrested the moon should at the same moment 

 cause to spring into existence, round a point just 3,000 

 miles this side her center, a globe of water of exactly the 

 same mass, and that both these moons were allowed to 

 drop simultaneously. What would be the result? Were 

 we to apply the reasoning of Newton, as based on his 

 aforementioned experiment, we should have to argue 

 somewhat after this fashion: Here are two great "ob- 

 jects" falling together through a vacuum. They must 



