JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 49 
When Kepler had finished his great work and had given 
to the world his imperishable laws, he conceived the existence 
of a powerful central force by which the planetary movements 
were controlled. He had wrought out the fact along the line 
of strict mathematics. Some one must come later to apply the 
rules of logical reasoning to see if these could be made 
to harmonize. Isaac Newton seemed to have been 
qualified by nature for the work necessary at this 
period in the history of astronomy. His careful reasoning 
worked out the universal law of gravitation. He began the 
study of the law of forces; of force applied directly, of forces 
applied at right angles, and at different angles. He applied his 
logical process to the moon falling towards the earth under the 
powerful influence of the planet's attraction but prevented 
from ever reaching the earth because of an impulse from a 
secondary force resulting in an orbitual curve. Newton’s 
logical reasoning and discoveries have done more than the 
works of any other of his class of philosophers to simplify as- 
tronomy, bringing it within the research of the artizan, or even 
the school boy. We English speaking people are so proud of 
Newton, we would like to put him at the head of the long list 
of those great men who have been counted masters of the 
heavens. I am not sure that this would be quite just. He 
may well be ranked among the foremost however, of those 
mighty men who have put our race under everlasting tribute 
for the service they have rendered by their self-denying per- 
- severance. 
I must here refer to Bode’s law respecting the distances 
of the planets from the sun, the discovery of which must be 
regarded as one of the great events of astronomy. Prof. 
Bode accepting the suggestion that sucha law must exist, after 
careful investigation arrived at the following ingenious arrange- 
ment of figures to represent these proportionate distances. As 
the densities of the planets must affect the law, and we cannot 
be absolutely certain respecting these densities, no figures can 
probably do more than give us a near approximation. Bode’s 
series of figures are to say the least of it, intensely interest- 
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