sure upon that body (Art.
77), so that under the influence of the centrifugal force only, Mercury
would be borne away from its central body, the sun, with a power and
energy of motion entirely dependent upon the intensity of the
electro-magnetic Aether waves which give rise to the centrifugal force.

Thus Mercury would be carried away from the sun, far far away into the
depths of space, with ever-decreasing rapidity, the rapidity of its
motion through space being entirely dependent upon the intensity and
energy of the Aether waves; and, as that intensity varies inversely as
the square of the distance from the central body, the sun, so the
impelling and repelling energy of the Aetherial waves would vary
inversely as the square of the distance from the central body.

Thus the motion of Mercury or any other planet through space would not
be uniform, but would gradually decrease, and such a result is perfectly
in harmony with all experience and experiment in relation to moving
bodies on this earth.

This effect of the Aetherial electro-magnetic light waves upon a planet
is in harmony with Newton's nineteenth query in _Optics_, and is indeed
the physical illustration of that query in its corrected form which we
have already referred to in Art. 46, where Newton says: "Doth it
(Aether) not grow denser and denser, etc.; every body endeavouring to go
from the denser parts of the medium towards the rarer?"

That the Aether does grow denser and denser nearer to a body we have
already seen in Art. 46, and now we learn that a body, when under the
influence of the centrifugal force only, would pass from the denser
parts of a medium to the rarer parts, as suggested by Newton. We will
now suppose that Mercury has been repelled, by the pressure due to the
aetherial waves generated by the sun, to the distance of Neptune, a
distance of 2,780,000,000 miles; and that at this point the centrifugal
force is cancelled, and in its place is put the centripetal force of
Gravitation. What will be the effect upon Mercury then? At first sight
the effect will be exceedingly slight, but slowly, yet surely, the
attractive power of the sun would begin to make itself manifest, and we
should find Mercury retracing its path along exactly the same straight
line that it had taken in its outward journey.

Not only so, but its motion would be accelerated just in the same
proportion that it had decreased on its outward journey. On and on
through the interv