XII 



GRAVISTATIC HEAT 



IN earlier chapters we have seen how grossly New- 

 tonians have been undervaluing the functions of the 

 principle of universal gravitation in the domain of 

 planetary and stellar motions. They have employed it 

 negatively rather than positively; destructively rather 

 than constructively; as a clog, a brake, a restraint, in- 

 stead of as a never-failing well of motive power. They ac- 

 cept the so-called rectilinear motions as gifts out of the 

 occult, not in the single particular of momentum or ve- 

 locity, but in those of adaptation and direction as well; 

 and they employ gravity merely to lasso and tether the 

 self -flying stars and planets. In the same way they postu- 

 late the rotations of the sun and planets as ultimate facts, 

 or, at least, as conditions inherited from prior motions 

 which themselves were self-existent ; and then they invent 

 an explanation of tides in which the role of gravity is to 

 retard those rotations and eventually to bring them to a 

 standstill. 



Furthermore, we have seen how, following out this 

 medieval style of speculation, and perceiving, but mis- 

 interpreting, the exquisite balancing of our system from 

 day to day and year to year, they invented another ab- 

 straction, namely, the law of conservation of moment of 

 momentum, which is conceived to control celestial mo- 

 tions, not through the ordinary channels of physical 

 cause and effect, but by some sort of teleological ordina- 

 tion or oversight vested in abstract energy as matter's 



