Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- Part I PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
- Part II RECENT PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY
- CHAPTER I FOUNDATION OF ASTRONOMICAL PHYSICS
- CHAPTER II SOLAR OBSERVATIONS AND THEORIES
- CHAPTER III RECENT SOLAR ECLIPSES
- CHAPTER IV SPECTROSCOPIC WORK ON THE SUN
- CHAPTER V TEMPERATURE OF THE SUN
- CHAPTER VI THE SUN'S DISTANCE
- CHAPTER VII PLANETS AND SATELLITES
- CHAPTER VIII PLANETS AND SATELLITES (continued)
- CHAPTER IX THEORIES OF PLANETARY EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER X RECENT COMETS
- CHAPTER XI RECENT COMETS (continued)
- CHAPTER XII STARS AND NEBULÆ
- CHAPTER XIII METHODS OF RESEARCH
- INDEX
CHAPTER IX - THEORIES OF PLANETARY EVOLUTION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- Part I PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
- Part II RECENT PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY
- CHAPTER I FOUNDATION OF ASTRONOMICAL PHYSICS
- CHAPTER II SOLAR OBSERVATIONS AND THEORIES
- CHAPTER III RECENT SOLAR ECLIPSES
- CHAPTER IV SPECTROSCOPIC WORK ON THE SUN
- CHAPTER V TEMPERATURE OF THE SUN
- CHAPTER VI THE SUN'S DISTANCE
- CHAPTER VII PLANETS AND SATELLITES
- CHAPTER VIII PLANETS AND SATELLITES (continued)
- CHAPTER IX THEORIES OF PLANETARY EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER X RECENT COMETS
- CHAPTER XI RECENT COMETS (continued)
- CHAPTER XII STARS AND NEBULÆ
- CHAPTER XIII METHODS OF RESEARCH
- INDEX
Summary
We cannot doubt that the solar system, as we see it, is the result of some process of growth–that, during innumerable ages, the forces of Nature were at work upon its materials, blindly modelling them into the shape appointed for them from the beginning by Omnipotent Wisdom. To set ourselves to inquire what that process was, may be an audacity, but it is a legitimate, nay, an inevitable one. For man's implanted instinct to “look before and after” does not apply to his own little life alone, but regards the whole history of creation, from the highest to the lowest–from the microscopic germ of an alga or a fungus to the visible frame and furniture of the heavens.
Kant considered that the inquiry into the mode of origin of the world was one of the easiest problems set by Nature; but it cannot be said that his own solution of it was a satisfactory one. He, however, struck out in 1755 a track which thought still pursues. In his Allgemeine Naturgeschichte the growth of sun and planets was traced from the cradle of a vast and formless mass of evenly diffused particles, and the uniformity of their movements was sought to be accounted for by the uniform action of attractive and repulsive forces, under the dominion of which their development was carried forwards.
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- A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century , pp. 348 - 362Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1885