182 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
A and B, B in its revolution happened to lie near its ine of motion so that the 
attraction of B on C was stronger than that of A on C, then C would fall into 
an orbit about B and become a satellite. 
If when B sought to pass A, the inertia of B had somewhat exceeded the 
attraction of A, then B would move on a little further than it would have 
moved had its inertia been less, and the effect will be to project the planet B into 
an ellipse. If its inertia was considerably in excess, the ellipse would be very 
eccentric like the orbits of Mercury and Mars, or of the binary sun Gamma 
Virginis. If inertia and attraction were equal, then orbits would be circles; 
and as circular orbits are unknown, all suns drew in planets from space, and the 
greater the distance, of course the more rapid the flight of planets, the greater 
their inertia of motion, and the greater the eccentricity of their elliptical orbits. 
The corollary is that the cosmogony wherein rotating cosmical spheres, whether 
gaseous, plastic or fluid, cast off from time to time concentric rings afterwards. 
becoming planets, has no known law of nature in its support. 
Rotary motion is the most complex of massive movement. It is probable 
that for a long time after planets began orbital circuits, they did not turn on 
axes. There is a difference between the attraction of suns on the sides of 
planets nearest them, and on opposite sides. The excess is slight, yet in a thous- 
and revolutions, could not fail making its power felt. The effect is to retard 
somewhat the progressive orbital motion of the sides next suns; and permit the 
external sides to move with the same velocity they had when they fell from space, 
and had their paths changed from tangental lines to orbital curves. This differ- 
ence then in time would cause all planets to assume axial rotation. The rate of 
this rotary motion would not be retarded at aphelion; nor accelerated in perihe- 
lion, because the difference of solar attraction on opposite sides of planets is a 
constant quantity depending solely on their diameters which are invariable. 
When all the primordial mass of dissociated matter shall have been formed into 
large and small globes; and when all the great spheres shall have converted all 
the smaller ones into planets, and when these flying orbs shall have drawn in all 
stray particles of matter as meteors, then the universe will be complete, and the 
cosmos finished. Massive motion will be atits maximum, while atomic motion 
will be on the decline. Molecular activity on all suns and planets will pass cul- 
mination and run down. Light will vanish first, then heat. Elements will be 
locked in cold compounds and affinity cease. Electricity will be no longer dy- 
namic but statical. Ages before this however, the vibrations life and mind will 
have disappeared, and at this epoch the only modes of force displayed by matter 
will be gravity and massive motion. Frigid globes will roll as perfectly on orbits. 
as when mind existed to contemplate the scene. Nature will be as inert as it 
would have been if the cosmic gas had solidified into one inanimate ball, unless 
gravity can put a stop to the circuits of dead worlds. By the first law, all spheres 
must move forever on orbits by inertia, unless some resisting medium in space 
retards their motion. Gravity at this stage of the universe has one opponent,— 
