Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative (Vol. 1-3). Spencer Herbert

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СКАЧАТЬ nothing to coerce the atoms into union. Whence we infer that these detached fragments of nebulous matter will continue in their original state. Non-periodic comets seem to do so.

      We have already seen that this view of the origin of comets harmonizes with the characters of their orbits; but the evidence hence derived is much stronger than was indicated. The great majority of cometary orbits are classed as parabolic; and it is ordinarily inferred that they are visitors from remote space, and will never return. But are they rightly classed as parabolic? Observations on a comet moving in an extremely eccentric ellipse, which are possible only when it is comparatively near perihelion, must fail to distinguish its orbit from a parabola. Evidently, then, it is not safe to class it as a parabola because of inability to detect the elements of an ellipse. But if extreme eccentricity of an orbit necessitates such inability, it seems quite possible that comets have no other orbits than elliptic ones. Though five or six are said to be hyperbolic, yet, as I learn from one who has paid special attention to comets, "no such orbit has, I believe, been computed for a well-observed comet." Hence the probability that all the orbits are ellipses is overwhelming. Ellipses and hyperbolas have countless varieties of forms, but there is only one form of parabola; or, to speak literally, all parabolas are similar, while there are infinitely numerous dissimilar ellipses and dissimilar hyperbolas. Consequently, anything coming to the Sun from a great distance must have one exact amount of proper motion to produce a parabola: all other amounts would give hyperbolas or ellipses. And if there are no hyperbolic orbits, then it is infinity to one that all the orbits are elliptical. This is just what they would be if comets had the genesis above supposed.

      And now, leaving these erratic bodies, let us turn to the more familiar and important members of the Solar System. It was the remarkable harmony among their movements which first made Laplace conceive that the Sun, planets, and satellites had resulted from a common genetic process. As Sir William Herschel, by his observations on the nebulæ, was led to the conclusion that stars resulted from the aggregation of diffused matter; so Laplace, by his observations on the structure of the Solar System, was led to the conclusion that only by the rotation of aggregating matter were its peculiarities to be explained. In his Exposition du Système du Monde, he enumerates as the leading evidences:—1. The movements of the planets in the same direction and in orbits approaching to the same plane; 2. The movements of the satellites in the same direction as those of the planets; 3. The movements of rotation of these various bodies and of the sun in the same direction as the orbital motions, and mostly in planes little different; 4. The small eccentricities of the orbits of the planets and satellites, as contrasted with the great eccentricities of the cometary orbits. And the probability that these harmonious movements had a common cause, he calculates as two hundred thousand billions to one.

This immense preponderance of probability does not point to a common cause under the form ordinarily conceived—an Invisible Power working after the method of "a Great Artificer;" but to an Invisible Power working after the method of evolution. For though the supporters of the common hypothesis may argue that it was necessary for the sake of stability that the planets should go round the Sun in the same direction and nearly in one plane, they cannot thus account for the direction of the axial motions.[16] The mechanical equilibrium would not have been interfered with, had the Sun been without any rotatory movement; or had he revolved on his axis in a direction opposite to that in which the planets go round him; or in a direction at right angles to the average plane of their orbits. With equal safety the motion of the Moon round the Earth might have been the reverse of the Earth's motion round its axis; or the motions of Jupiter's satellites might similarly have been at variance with his axial motion; or those of Saturn's satellites with his. As, however, none of these alternatives have been followed, the uniformity must be considered, in this case as in all others, evidence of subordination to some general law—implies what we call natural causation, as distinguished from arbitrary arrangement.

      Hence the hypothesis of evolution would be the only probable one, even in the absence of any clue to the particular mode of evolution. But when we have, propounded by a mathematician of the highest authority, a theory of this evolution based on established mechanical principles, which accounts for these various peculiarities, as well as for many minor ones, the conclusion that the Solar System was evolved becomes almost irresistible.

The general nature of Laplace's theory scarcely needs stating. Books of popular astronomy have familiarized most readers with his conceptions;—namely, that the matter now condensed into the Solar System, once formed a vast rotating spheroid of extreme rarity extending beyond the orbit of the outermost planet; that as this spheroid contracted, its rate of rotation necessarily increased; that by augmenting centrifugal force its equatorial zone was from time to time prevented from following any further the concentrating mass, and so remained behind as a revolving ring; that each of the revolving rings thus periodically detached, eventually became ruptured at its weakest point, and, contracting on itself, gradually aggregated into a rotating mass; that this, like the parent mass, increased in rapidity of rotation as it decreased in size, and, where the centrifugal force was sufficient, similarly left behind rings, which finally collapsed into rotating spheroids; and that thus, out of these primary and secondary rings, there arose planets and their satellites, while from the central mass there resulted the Sun. Moreover, it is tolerably well known that this a priori reasoning harmonizes with the results of experiment. Dr. Plateau has shown that when a mass of fluid is, as far may be, protected from the action of external forces, it will, if made to rotate with adequate velocity, form detached rings; and that these rings will break up into spheroids which turn on their axes in the same direction with the central mass. Thus, given the original nebula, which, acquiring a vortical motion in the way indicated, has at length concentrated into a vast spheroid of aeriform matter moving round its axis—given this, and mechanical principles explain the rest. The genesis of a Solar System displaying movements like those observed, may be predicted; and the reasoning on which the prediction is based is countenanced by experiment.[17]

      But now let us inquire whether, besides these most conspicuous structural and dynamic peculiarities of the Solar System, sundry minor ones are not similarly explicable.

      Take first the relation between the planes of the planetary orbits and the plane of the Sun's equator. If, when the nebulous spheroid extended beyond the orbit of Neptune, all parts of it had been revolving exactly in the same plane, or rather in parallel planes—if all its parts had had one axis; then the planes of the successive rings would have been coincident with each other and with that of the Sun's rotation. But it needs only to go back to the earlier stages of concentration, to see that there could exist no such complete uniformity of motion. The flocculi, already described as precipitated from an irregular and widely-diffused nebula, and as starting from all points to their common centre of gravity, must move not in one plane but in innumerable planes, cutting each other at all angles. The gradual establishment of a vortical motion such as we at present see indicated in the spiral nebulæ, is the gradual approach towards motion in one plane. But this plane can but slowly become decided. Flocculi not moving in this plane, but entering into the aggregation at various inclinations, will tend to perform their revolutions round its centre in their own planes; and only in course of time will their motions be partly destroyed by conflicting ones, and partly resolved into the general motion. Especially will the outermost portions of the rotating mass retain for a long time their more or less independent directions. Hence the probabilities are, that the planes of the rings first detached will differ considerably from the average plane of the mass; while the planes of those detached latest will differ from it less.

      Here, again, inference to a considerable extent agrees with observation. Though the progression is irregular, yet, on the average, the inclinations decrease on approaching the Sun; and this is all we can expect. For as the portions of the nebulous spheroid must have arrived with miscellaneous inclinations, its strata must have had planes of rotation diverging from the average plane in degrees not always proportionate to their distances from the centre.

      Consider next the movements СКАЧАТЬ