Page:Newton's Principia (1846).djvu/208

 the system of two or more revolving bodies, the greater will the perturbation be of the motions of the parts of the system among themselves; because the inclinations of the lines drawn from that great body to those parts become greater; and the inequality of the proportion is also greater.

. 2. But the perturbation will be greatest of all, if we suppose the accelerative attractions of the parts of the system towards the greatest body of all are not to each other reciprocally as the squares of the distances from that great body; especially if the inequality of this proportion be greater than the inequality of the proportion of the distances from the great body. For if the accelerative force, acting in parallel directions and equally, causes no perturbation in the motions of the parts of the system, it must of course, when it acts unequally, cause a perturbation somewhere, which will be greater or less as the inequality is greater or less. The excess of the greater impulses acting upon some bodies, and not acting upon others, must necessarily change their situation among themselves. And this perturbation, added to the perturbation arising from the inequality and inclination of the lines, makes the whole perturbation greater.

. 3. Hence if the parts of this system move in ellipses or circles without any remarkable perturbation, it is manifest that, if they are at all impelled by accelerative forces tending to any other bodies, the impulse is very weak, or else is impressed very near equally and in parallel directions upon all of them.


 * If three bodies whose forces decrease in a duplicate ratio of the distances attract each other mutually; and the accelerative attractions of any two towards the third be between themselves reciprocally as the squares of the distances; and the two least revolve about the greatest; I say, that the interior of the two revolving bodies will, by radii drawn to the innermost and greatest, describe round that body areas more proportional to the times, and a figure more approaching to that of an ellipsis having its focus in the point of concourse of the radii, if that great body be agitated by those attractions, than it would do if that great body were not attracted at all by the lesser, but remained at rest; or than, it would if that great body were very much more or very much less attracted, or very much more or very much less agitated, by the attractions.

This appears plainly enough from the demonstration of the second Corollary of the foregoing Proposition; but it may be made out after this manner by a way of reasoning more distinct and more universally convincing.

1. Let the lesser bodies P and S revolve in the same plane about the greatest body T, the body P describing the interior orbit PAB, and S