Views of the architecture of the heavens / By J.P. Nichol.

  • John Pringle Nichol
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Views of the architecture of the heavens / By J.P. Nichol. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    planetary paths, as sure as that filmy comet is drawing in its orbit, must they too approach the sun, and, at the destined term of their separate existence, be resumed into his mass.* The first indefinite germs of this great organisation, provi¬ sion for its long existence, and finally its shroud, are thus all involved in that master conception from which we can now survey the mechanisms amid which we are ! And mark the nature of this decay. It comes, not as Newton thought, by accident, derangement, or disease, but through the midst of harmony ; it is an easy consequence of the venerable power which first evolved us, infused our scheme with the spirit of life, and gave it structure and strength. Our supposed origin of the planets gave them and their satel¬ lites that kind of orbits, and that kind of rotation, which produced their permanence; and the inher¬ ence of this same Nebulous parentage, viz., the existence of an ether, leads gently to their decline. * It may be asked does not this Ether rotate along with the planets, and therefore not retard them ? It must rotate some¬ how—the comets will one day discover that for us; but it can¬ not rotate with velocities corresponding to all the planets. Nay, the very ellipticity of the planetary orbits, small as this is, necessitates a retardation in every one of them, however the Ether may rotate.
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