An Expository Outline of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation | Page 5

from nothing. To meet this, his first difficulty, the author supposes
that there were certain nuclei, or centres of greater condensation,
analogous to those still remarked in the nebulæ of the heavens, and that
these nuclei, by their superior attractive force, consolidated into spheres
the gaseous matter around them:--
"Of nebulous matter," says he, "in its original state we know too little
to enable us to suggest how nuclei should be established in it. But
supposing that from a peculiarity in the constitution nuclei are formed,
we know very well how, by the power of gravitation, the process of an
aggregation of the neighbouring matter to these nuclei should proceed
until masses more or less solid should be detached from the rest. It is a
well-known law in physics, that when fluid matter collects towards, or
meets in a centre, it establishes a rotatory motion. See minor results of
this law in the whirlpool and the whirlwind--nay, on so humble a scale
as the water sinking through the aperture of a funnel. It thus becomes
certain, that when we arrive at the stage of a nebulous star we have a
rotation on its axis commenced."
Up to this, however, the author has proved nothing. The existence of
the fire-mist and nuclei are assumptions only, and the way by which he
tries to account for rotatory motion is clearly erroneous. The
aggregation of matter round the nuclei by gravitation would have no
such tendency; no more than a perfect balance would of itself have a
tendency to move about its fulcrum, or a falling stone to deviate from
its vertical course. Gravitation would indeed compress the particles of
matter, but its tendency and entire action is towards the nucleus; it
compresses them no more on one side of the line of their direction to
the centre of force than on any other side; and hence no lateral or
rotatory motion would ensue. Rotation, therefore, is yet unaccounted
for; though the author says it is a well-known law in physics that when
fluid matter collects towards, or meets in a centre, it establishes a
rotatory motion; and then for illustration refers to a whirlwind or
whirlpool. No such effect would follow the conditions stated, and an
entire ignorance is betrayed of the laws of mechanical philosophy. In

the whirlpool and the whirlwind the gyration is caused by the fluid
passing, not to the centre, but through it and away from it; in the
whirlpool downwards through the place of exit, in the whirlwind
upwards to where the vacuum has caused the rapid aggregation.
LAPLACE was too able a mathematician to commit these elementary
blunders; he did not assume to account for rotation by inapplicable
laws, but took for granted that the sun revolved upon its axis, and
thence communicated a corresponding motion to the bodies thrown
from its surface. But our author has sought to advance beyond his
teacher, and in this way has shown his ignorance of physics by an
egregious mistake. At this point we might stop, without following the
ulterior steps by which the solar system is made to evolve out of heated
vapour. Having got rotation, though by an impossible process, the
author falls into the illustration already given of the theory of
LAPLACE. The rotation of each nucleus or sun round its axis produces
centrifugal force; that force, by refrigeration, increases beyond the
centripetal force of gravity; in consequence rings are formed and
detached from the surface, whose unequal coherence of parts mostly
causes them to break into separate masses or planets, partaking of the
motion of the bodies from which they have been separated, and these
primaries in their turn becoming centres of gravitation and centrifugal
force, throw off their secondaries, or moons.
In this way the solar system and other systems upon a similar plan of
arrangement, it is conjectured, may have been formed. According to the
author the generative process is still in progress, and new worlds are in
course of being thrown off from new suns in the confines of creation.
These nebulous stars on the outer bounds of space, of varying forms
and brightness, are supposed to be the centres of new systems in
different stages of development, like children of various ages and
growth in a numerous family. This is the author's own illustration (p.
20), and after giving it he proceeds:--
"Precisely thus, seeing in our astral system many thousands of worlds
in all stages of formation, from the most rudimental to that immediately
preceding the present condition of those we deem perfect, it is

unavoidable to conclude that all the perfect have gone through the
various stages which we see in the rudimental. This leads us at once to
the conclusion that the whole of our firmament was at one time