ase, our own real
movement would be added to, in the other subtracted from, theirs. But
nothing of all this can be detected. Comets approach the sun
indifferently from all quarters, and with velocities quite independent
of direction.

We conclude, then, that the "cosmical current" which bears the solar
system towards its unknown goal carries also with it nebulous masses of
undefined extent, and at an undefined remoteness, fragments detached
from which, continually entering the sphere of the sun's attraction,
flit across our skies under the form of comets. These are, however,
almost certainly so far strangers to our system that they had no part in
the long processes of development by which its present condition was
attained. They are, perhaps, survivals of an earlier, and by us scarcely
and dimly conceivable state of things, when the swirling chaos from
which sun and planets were, by a supreme edict, to emerge, had not as
yet separately begun to be.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1267: _Astr. Nach._, Nos. 1,172-4.]

[Footnote 1268: _Berichte Saechs. Ges._, 1871, p. 174.]

[Footnote 1269: _Natur der Cometen_, p. 124; _Astr. Nach._, No. 2,086.]

[Footnote 1270: _Annales de l'Obs. de Moscou_, t. iii., pt. i., p. 37.]

[Footnote 1271: _Bull. Astr._, t. iii., p. 598. The value of the
repellent force for the comet of 1811 (which offered peculiar facilities
for its determination) was found = 17.5.]

[Footnote 1272: Faye, _Comptes Rendus_, t. xciii., p. 13.]

[Footnote 1273: _Annales_, t. v., pt. ii., p. 137.]

[Footnote 1274: _Am. Jour. of Sc._, vol. xxxii. (2nd ser.), p. 57.]

[Footnote 1275: _Astr. Nach._, No. 2,082.]

[Footnote 1276: _Annales de l'Obs. de Moscou_, t. vi., pt. i., p. 60.]

[Footnote 1277: _Astr. Register_, March, 1883.]

[Footnote 1278: _Astr. Nach._, No. 3,018.]

[Footnote 1279: _Ibid._, No. 3,093.]

[Footnote 1280: _Constitution de l'Espace Celeste_, p. 224.]

[Footnote 1281: _Astroph. Jour._, vol. iii., p. 36.]

[Footnote 1282: _Physikalische Zeitschrift_, November 10 and 17, 1900;
_Astroph. Jour._, vol. xiii., p. 344. _Cf._ Schwarzschild, _Sitzungsb._,
Muenchen, 1901, Heft iii.; J. Hahn, _Nature_, vols. lxv., p. 415; lxvi.,
p. 55.]

[Footnote 1283: _Astr. Nach._, No. 2,307.]

[Footnote 1284: _Ibid._, No. 2,304.]

[Footnote 1285: _Observatory_, vol. iii., p. 390.]

[Footnote 1286: _Astr. Nach._, No. 2,319.]

[Footnote 1287: _Ueber die Kometen von 371 v. Chr._, 1668, 1843, I. und
1880