105 



are realized anywhere — it is very certain that our rough, 

 uncouth, unwieldy and obstinate earth can not be made to 

 conform to them. 



But aside from such palpable blunders as the above, there 

 is such a want of definiteness in his treatment of the whole 

 subject of physics, such a looseness of reasoning, that the 

 mind nowhere feels compelled to the conclusions which the 

 author draws. The reader feels at all times that the arrange- 

 ment of forces is entirely arbitrary with the author, and 

 might quite as well have been entirely different, and thus 

 brought about an entirely different result. If such reason- 

 ing as is found in this work be permitted to pass as proof 

 of the principles which regulate nature, we would not 

 hesitate to prove that " Simms's Hole" is a reality, or that 

 Hickok's Rational Cosmology is one of the most valuable 

 contributions to human knowledge. 



As a specimen of the logic of this book, let the reader 

 examine the author's proof that the orbits of the planets 

 must be ellipses. He will find it commencing on p. 203. 

 After announcing the <c projectile •" and " adhesive " forces 

 by which the planet is retained in its orbit, he proceeds to 

 determine the form of the orbit in the following unique 

 method : " If the excess of the projectile force be to so great 

 a degree, that when a point taken as a centre within the 

 induced curve shall have lines drawn from this centre to 

 the curve, and then reflected from the curve at the same 

 angle to a tangent at the point, on the other side, which the 

 incident line had with the tangent on this side, and these 

 reflected lines shall also meet a line drawn perpendicularly 

 to the axis of the curve at an angle greater than a right 

 angle, then will that curve be thereby evinced to be a hy- 

 perbola, and the planetary portion can not revolve in a 

 complete orbit about the centre." 



A logical friend of ours, when asked what he thought this 

 paragraph proved, replied after a moment's thought : " Why 

 it proves as plain as day. that a hyperbola is a hyperbola." 



[Trans, v.] 15 



