1885.] 
A New Cosmogony. 215 
transformed into satellites. M, Faye ascribes their existence 
to the enormous rarity of these rings and to their rapid 
rotation. 
We should thus have completed the explanation of the 
Solar System il this system had not a striking peculiarity 
which is apparently in full contradiction to what has been 
said. Of the eight planets revolving around the Sun six 
have satellites, and form thus secondary worlds, — accurate 
pictures of the Sun-world to which they all belong. Ac- 
cording to what has been said all the rotations and revolu- 
tions must take place in the same direction, and, what is 
more, in the “ direCt ” direction. But in the secondary 
worlds of the two most remote planets, Uranus and Neptune, 
the rotations and revolutions of the satellites are in the 
reverse direction, — they are “retrograde.” 
Are we to believe that the theory just laid down is false ? 
It is not false, but incomplete. And thus we come to one 
of the most interesting points in the history of Science. 
Newton and La Piace held that all rotations and revolutions 
must ensue in the same direction. La Place went further, 
and applied to this question the theory of probabilities. 
Occupying himself with the planets and satellites as then 
known, he calculated that if a new planet or satellite should 
be discovered the probability was 10,000 to 1 that the revo- 
lution of the satellite or the rotation of the planet would be 
in the same direction as all the others — a probability far 
greater than that of the historical events which we accept 
with the greatest confidence. The investigation of the 
satellites of Uranus and the discovery of Neptune have 
with one stroke annihilated this probability, and therewith 
the far-famed cosmogony of La Place. This hypothesis 
deduced all the planets from the Sun. It consequently 
assigned to the planets and the satellites the same relations 
and the same direction of rotation and revolution throughout 
the entire Solar System. In reality they are direCt in the 
inner part and retrograde in the outer. 
We will now complete our theory. In the primeval, 
spherical, and homogeneous nebular spot, where the presence 
of rings revolving round the centre cannot modify the law 
of internal gravitation, we saw that thjs gravitation is mo- 
dified in direCt relation to the distance from the centre. 
Subsequently the Sun was formed by the coalescence of all 
the matter which had not been used up in forming these 
rings ; thus an empty space was formed around the Sun. 
Thereby the aCtion of gravitation in the interior of the 
system thus modified was totally altered. By the aCtion of 
