Even with a blade that possessed the
coherence and tenacity of iron or steel, the case would be one that
it would be difficult for molecular cohesion to deal with. But that
difficulty is almost infinitely increased when it is a substance of
much lower cohesive tenacity than either iron or steel that has to be
subjected to the strain.
"There would be, at least, some mitigation of this difficulty if it
were lawful to assume that the substance which is subjected to this
strain was not amenable to the laws of ponderable existence; if there
were room for the notion that comets and their tails, which have to
be brandished in such a stupendous fashion, were sky-spectres,
immaterial phantoms, unreal visions of that negative shadow-kind
which has been alluded to. This, however, unfortunately, is not a
permissible alternative in the circumstances of the case. The great
underlying and indispensable fact that the comet comes rushing up
toward the sun out of space, and then shoots round that great center
of attraction by the force of its own acquired and ever-increasing
impetuosity; the fact that it is obedient
{p.
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