[PLATE: SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S ASTROLABE.]
These superb discoveries were, however, but the starting point from
which Newton entered on a series of researches, which disclosed many
of the profoundest secrets in the scheme of celestial mechanics. His
natural insight showed that not only large masses like the sun and
the earth, and the moon, attract each other, but that every particle
in the universe must attract every other particle with a force which
varies inversely as the square of the distance between them. If, for
example, the two particles were placed twice as far apart, then the
intensity of the force which sought to bring them together would be
reduced to one-fourth. If two particles, originally ten miles
asunder, attracted each other with a certain force, then, when the
distance was reduced to one mile, the intensity of the attraction
between the two particles would be increased one-hundred-fold. This
fertile principle extends throughout the whole of nature. In some
cases, however, the calculation of its effect upon the actual
problems of nature would be hardly possible, were it not for another
discovery which Newton's genius enabled him to accomplish. In the
case of two globes like the earth and the moon, we must remember that
we are dealing not with particles, but with two mighty masses of
matter, each composed of innumerable myriads of particles.
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