Page:A philosophical essay on probabilities Tr. Truscott, Emory 1902.djvu/98

88 then the cause of it in their mutual action. The searching examination of this action convinced me that it was sufficient if in the beginning the ratios of their mean movements had approached this law within certain limits, because their mutual action had established and maintained it rigorously. Thus these three bodies will balance one another eternally in space according to the preceding law unless strange causes, such as comets, should change suddenly their movements about Jupiter.

Accordingly it is seen how necessary it is to be attentive to the indications of nature when they are the result of a great number of observations, although in other respects they may be inexplicable by known means. The extreme difficulty of problems relative to the system of the world has forced geometricians to recur to the approximation which always leaves room for the fear that the quantities neglected may have an appreciable influence. When they have been warned of this influence by the observations, they have recurred to their analysis; in rectifying it they have always found the cause of the anomalies observed; they have determined the laws and often they have anticipated the observations in discovering the inequalities which it had not yet indicated. Thus one may say that nature itself has concurred in the analytical perfection of the theories based upon the principle of universal gravity; and this is to my mind one of the strongest proofs of the truth of this admirable principle.

In the cases which I have just considered the analytical solution of the question has changed the probability of the causes into certainty. But most often