Merely noting this hypothetical illustration for the purpose of showing how the law applies to the case of nebular evolution, supposing it to have taken place, let us pass to the phenomena of the Solar System as now exhibited. Here the general principles above set forth are every instant exemplified. Each planet and satellite has a momentum which would, if acting alone, carry it forward in the direction it is at any instant pursuing. This momentum hence acts as a resistance to motion in any other direction. Each planet and satellite, however, is drawn by a force which, if unopposed, would take it in a straight line towards its primary. And the resultant of these two forces is that curve which it describes—a curve manifestly consequent on the unsymmetrical distribution of the forces around its path. This path, when more closely examined, supplies us with further illustrations. For it is not an exact circle or ellipse; which it would be were the tangential and centripetal forces the only ones concerned. Adjacent members of the Solar System, ever varying in their relative positions, cause what we call perturbations; that is, slight divergences in various directions from that circle or ellipse which the two chief forces would produce. These perturbations severally show us in minor degrees, how the line of movement is the resultant of all the forces engaged; and how this line becomes more complicated in proportion as the forces are multiplied. If instead of the motions of the planets and satellites as wholes, we consider the motions of their parts, we meet with comparatively complex illustrations. Every portion of the Earth’s substance in its daily rotation, describes a curve which is in the main a resultant of that resistance which checks its nearer approach to the centre of gravity, that momentum which would carry it off at a tangent, and those forces of gravitation and cohesion which keep it from being so carried off. If this axial motion be compounded with the orbital motion, the course of each part is seen to be a much more involved one. And we find it to have a still greater complication on taking into account that lunar attraction which mainly produces the tides and the precession of the equinoxes.
§ 88. We come next to terrestrial changes: present ones as observed, and past ones as inferred by geologists. Let us set out with the hourly-occurring alterations in the Earth’s atmosphere; descend to the slower alterations in progress on its surface; and then to the still slower ones going on beneath.
Masses of air, absorbing heat from surfaces warmed by the sun, expand, and so lessen the weight of the atmospheric columns of which they are parts. Hence they offer to adjacent atmospheric columns, diminished lateral resistance; and these, moving in the directions of the diminished resistance, displace the expanded air; while this, pursuing an upward course, displays a motion along that line in which there is least pressure. When again, by the ascent of such heated masses from extended areas like the torrid zone, there is produced at the upper surface of the atmosphere, a protuberance beyond the limits of equilibrium—when the air forming this protuberance begins to overflow laterally towards the poles; it does so because, while the tractive force of the Earth is nearly the same, the lateral resistance is greatly diminished. And throughout the course of each current thus generated, as well as throughout the course of each counter-current flowing: into the vacuum that is left, the direction is always the resultant of the Earth’s tractive force and the resistance offered by the surrounding masses of air: modified only by conflict with other currents similarly determined, and by collision with prominences on the Earth’s crust. The movements of water, in both its gaseous and liquid states, furnish further examples. In conformity with the mechanical theory of heat, it may be shown that evaporation is the escape of particles of water in the direction of least resistance; and that as the resistance (which is due to the pressure of the water diffused in a gaseous state) diminishes, the evaporation increases. Conversely, that rushing together of particles called condensation, which takes place when any portion of atmospheric vapour has its temperature much lowered, may be interpreted as a diminution of the mutual pressure among the condensing particles, while the pressure of surrounding particles remains the same; and so is a motion taking place in the direction of lessened resistance. In the course followed by the resulting rain-drops, we have one of the simplest instances of the joint effect of the two antagonist forces. The Earth’s attraction, and the resistance of atmospheric currents ever varying in direction and intensity, give as their resultants, lines which incline to the horizon in countless different degrees and undergo perpetual variations. More clearly still is the law exemplified by these same rain-drops when they reach the ground. In the course they take while trickling over its surface, in every rill, in every larger stream, and in every river, we see them descending as straight as the antagonism of surrounding objects permits. From moment to moment, the motion of water towards the Earth’s centre is opposed by the solid matter around and under it; and from moment to moment its route is the resultant of the lines of greatest traction and least resistance. So far from a cascade furnishing, as it seems to do, an exception, it furnishes but another illustration. For though all solid obstacles to a vertical fall of the water are removed, yet the water’s horizontal momentum is an obstacle; and the parabola in which the stream leaps from the projecting ledge, is generated by the combined gravitation and momentum. It may be well just to draw attention to the degree of complexity here produced in the line of movement by the variety of forces at work. In atmospheric currents, and still more clearly in water-courses (to which might be added ocean-streams), the route followed is too complex to be defined, save as a curve of three dimensions with an ever varying equation.
The Earth’s solid crust undergoes changes that supply another group of illustrations. The denudation of lands and the depositing of the removed sediment in new strata at the bottoms of seas and lakes, is a process throughout which motion is obviously determined in the same way as is that of the water effecting the transport. Again, though we have no direct inductive proof that the forces classed as igneous, expend themselves along lines of least resistance; yet what little we know of them is in harmony with the belief that they do so. Earthquakes continually revisit the same localities, and special tracts undergo for long periods together successive elevations or subsidences,—facts which imply that already-fractured portions of the Earth’s crust are those most prone to yield under the pressure caused by further contractions. The distribution of volcanoes along certain lines, as well as the frequent recurrence of eruptions from the same vents, are facts of like meaning.
§ 89. That organic growth takes place in the direction of least resistance, is a proposition that has been set forth and illustrated by Mr. James Hinton, in the Medico-Chirurgical Review for October, 1858. After detailing a few of the early observations which led him to this generalization, he formulates it thus:—
“Organic form is the result of motion.”
“Motion takes the direction of least resistance.”
“Therefore organic form is the result of motion in the direction of least resistance.”