SOLAR D YNAMICS—SOME NE W ASTRONOMY. 321 



tive position. The question as to just how it is formed, will be in a measure 

 dependent on another question, as to the direction of the Sun's movement. 



Just here allow a word, to anticipate an objection. It is admitted that com- 

 putations are more exact than diagrams. But there are thirigs with reference to 

 which computations have nothing to say. All we ask for diagrams, is that they 

 shall be heard where they have anything to say. And this the more, since what 

 they teach is not in conflict, but in harmony with established truth. 



We have seen that in order to harmonize with the phenomena, any change in 

 the direction of the Sun's movement, must change the diagram, — must change, in 

 other words, the shape of the path of the earth. Remember it is the phenomena 

 that requires this, and not the laws of force. Under the new condition, the law 

 of force would doubtless give us new phenomena rather than new shape to the 

 path of the earth. The new condition would give to the ecHptic a new posi- 

 tion. But the phenomena being and continuing as at present, every different 

 line of movement, must give to the earth's path a different twist, x'^.nd now we 

 must ask the physicist : Will the laws of force and of motion allow of all these 

 twists ? Or do these laws, and the phenomena, require of the Sun movement in 

 a definite direction ? Here is a problem awaiting solution. What must be the 

 direction, and the rate of the movement of the Sun, in order that, in accordance 

 with known laws, we may have the known phenomena ? If we cannot decide 

 this definitely, can we approximate the definite ? 



The physicist and mathematician may not be able to settle it, but perhaps, 

 there is enough in the vast range of facts, known, and knowable, to definitely fix 

 the only possible direction of the forward movement of the solar system. You 

 may as well talk of a disjointed machine working harmoniously, as talk of the 

 solar system moving as it does, with anything out of place. Much less when the 

 thing displaced is the movement of the master-wheel. The great complication of 

 movement, the laws of force and of motion, will be somewhat rigid in requiring 

 that the forward movement shall be none other than what it is. And the more 

 so, as these laws are to be fulfilled, not only in the movement of the planets 

 themselves, but also in the movement of their satellites. It would be a wonderful 

 instance of accommodation in nature, if, the movement of the planets and of 

 their satellites being just what they are, it made no difference whether the solar 

 system were moving toward one latitude or toward another. We have certain 

 known laws, and we have certain known phenomena; between these laws and 

 these phenomena are certain unknown facts. It is these we are hunting after. 

 The laws cause the facts ;. and the facts cause the phenomena. By necessity these 

 facts have no wide range of possibility. They are in a strait betwixt two. They 

 must conform to the laws ; and they must be in harmony with the phenomena. 



We have seen that with different direction of movement on the part of the 

 ruling orb, in order to C0nfor?n to known phenomena, there must be different pro- 

 cedure on the part of the subordinate sphere. This is necessary in order to 

 maintain relation to a certain plane. What is true of the Sun in this regard rela- 

 tive to the planets, will be true of the planets relative to their satellites. That is 



