homogeneous, nebulous matter, widely diffused through space, the following successive changes will, on physical principles, take place in it: (1) Mutual gravitation of its atoms; (2) atomic repulsion; (3) evolution of heat, by overcoming this repulsion; (4) molecular combination, at a certain stage of condensation, followed by (5) sudden and great disengagement of heat; (6) lowering of the temperature by radiation, and consequent precipitation of binary atoms, aggregating into irregular flocculi, and floating in the rarer medium just as water when precipitated from air floats into clouds; (7) each flocculus will move toward the common centre of gravity of all, but being an irregular mass in a resisting medium, this motion will be out of the rectilineal, that is to say, not directly toward the centre of gravity, but toward one or the other side of it; and thus (8) a spiral movement will ensue which will be communicated to the rarer medium through which the flocculus is moving; and (9) a preponderating momentum and rotation of the whole mass in some one direction conveying its spirals toward the common centre of gravity."*

This, it will be seen, is just the reverse of La Place's action. He began with a red-hot nebula, and derived his power from its cooling; they begin with a cold nebula and proceed to heat it up by the power of gravitation. How immense the interval must be between a heat which originally held gold, and iron, and granite, not only melted but in vapor, and the cold of a nebula which required the compression of millions of miles to produce heat enough to keep water from freezing, we have no means of estimating; but that is the difference between the original inventors and the modern improvers of the nebular hypothesis. La Place's fire-mist cooled and condensed in the cooling, and so he made his last-formed planets, and the sun, the most condensed bodies of the system; American Cyclopædia-Article, Nebular Hypothesis, xii. p. 158,

but Spencer sees that it will never square with the actual state of things as discovered by modern astronomy, and so he reverses the process; he begins to heat up his nebula, and condenses it in the heating. The last error is, if possible, worse than the first; it is hard to know which of its absurdities to select for illustration.

It does not answer the purpose of its inventors, viz., to reconcile the irregular distances and densities of the planets with the regular order required by the theory. It merely reverses the order in regard to heat, but leaves the force of gravitation still in action, requiring a regular progress of density in the planets from the newest to the oldest; but there is no such order, nor any order whatever of this kind, as we have already demonstrated.

Nor has anybody, save Mr. Spencer himself, been able to see how worlds so heterogeneous as ours could have been made out of no other materials than a homogeneous gas, whether hot or cold, by any process, either of boiling or baking. In this world of ours, if we put a leg of mutton into a pot, we do not find that any amount of boiling, or gravity either, will turn it into a plum-pudding; but to find a simple gas boiled down into mutton, and plumpudding, and cook, and company to boot, passes our simple comprehension.

There is a moral objection against Mr. Spencer's proposal which does not lie against the original theory. That theory brought us all, at least all survivors, through hellfire some ages ago, and left us cooling off a little at present. But Mr. Spencer calmly proposes to hurl us all, young and old, men, women, and little children, saints as well as sinners, into a fire a hundred times hotter than the fire and brimstone which the Bible threatens as the doom of the wicked. There is no escape, no salvation for any one; since Mr. Spencer admits no God, no Saviour, into his world. Hurled at last into the sun, body and soul,

every human being, good and bad, must burn in worse than hell-fire, with no prospect of ever getting out. That is the gospel of light and sweetness for the sake of which our skeptical friends curse Christianity and scoff at the Bible!

It is a slight objection, also, to our acceptance of cold nebulous fluid as the material of our globe, that there is no such thing in existence, neither in the heavens, nor in the earth; nor is any such thing possible as a cloud of vaporized metals intensely cold. All the metallic nebulæ of which we have any knowledge consist of flames of fire sufficiently hot to vaporize the metals existing in them. Even the aqueous clouds of our atmosphere, though they contain no materials for the building of a solid world, are infinitely warmer than the nebulous fluid of the hypothesis. But there is no agency known to man capable of expanding the water, metals, rocks, and clays of our earth into vapor but intense heat. The notion, then, of an intensely cold nebulous fluid, is such a gross contradiction in terms that it can not be entertained for a moment. The original absurdity was bad enough, without encumbering it with this impossible nonentity.

This modern improvement was made before the discovery by the spectroscope, of the composition of the nebulæ by the spectrum analysis, as will be presently illustrated. The nebula were so far off that it was never imagined that anybody could tell whether they were hot or cold, and so there was no great risk, it was supposed, in cooling them down to make them suit the theory; for our world-makers are absolute and sovereign in the manufacture of facts, as well as fancies, to support their theories. But now that our astonished nebularists are confronted with the gaseous flames of the nebula in the spectroscope, they are compelled to make another change of base, and are already on the retreat back to La Place's original fire-mist. What confidence can common people

repose in the theories of such self-contradicting philosophers who in their theories not only contradict themselves, but also condradict the first principles of mechanics, and profess to exhibit in the universe

A HUGE PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE,

which, more manageable than such machines usually are, invented itself, constructed itself, started itself and keeps itself running.

6. The motion described in this theory cannot be produced by the proposed machinery; nor can any motion whatever be originated by any machinery; nor, if otherwise originated, can motion be eternally maintained by this, or by any machine. This theory is only another plan of the Perpetual Motion; which, all mechanics are agreed, is an impracticable notion, contrary to the principle that action and reaction are equal. This principle holds good in heaven or in earth, wherever matter exists, and while it exists the construction of any machine to generate power is impracticable.

Its practicability was, however, supposed to be proved by a model made by Plateau, to demonstrate the modes of molecular attraction, and the manner in which centrifugal force acts in overcoming it. By means of clock-work, he caused a globule of oil to rotate in a mixture of alcohol and water of the same density, thus getting rid of the power of gravitation. By increasing the velocity he caused it to flatten out into a disc, and finally to scatter into a number of minute drops, which continued their revolutions as long as the vortex of the fluid in which they floated was kept in motion by the outside machinery. But this could give no illustration of the nebular theory, since the conditions are entirely different. Here the central globule, the divergent drops, and the surrounding liquid, are all of the same density; while the essential

condition of the nebular theory, on which the whole operation depends, is, that the central mass be of a greater density than the surrounding ether, so as to exert the attraction of gravitation upon its surface, and contract itself; and, moreover, that the cooling and contracting rings be of a different density from the rest of the mass, cooler and heavier, as the condition on which their separation depends; while the third and greatest difference is that Plateau's centrifugal force was applied from without, while La Place's was to be begotten by the machine itself.

It is quite plain to every miller that no current, or vortex, behaves itself in the way proposed by the Nebular Theory. You never see the saw-logs projected out of the river from the velocity they have acquired from it, much less the pebbles of the mill-race projected into the air by the force of the current, which is the only force proposed by the theory. Supposing La Place's rotating cloud to cool, and condense, and break into fragments at the outside, these being heavier than the rest would sink toward the centre, and would stay there as long as the rotation continued; for a vortex will never allow anything heavier than itself, carried by its current, to remain beyond its centre. Thus we should have, not a series of rings or planets, but one great globe with all the solids. at the centre, a liquid covering, and a gaseous atmosphere. The same result would attend the process of cooling, as every boy knows who has seen a blacksmith hoop a cart-wheel, and noted how the red-hot iron hoop contracts as it cools, and closes in more tightly on the wheel in consequence. So the only planetary ring that we can see, that of Saturn, has been closing in upon that planet. since the days of Huygens, and before many years will be united with it.* But this nebular fluid keeps cooling

* Sir David Brewster, More Worlds than One, 35. Prof, Struve says it has fallen down, 1872.