in which the earth rotated on its axis, which was then a little over two hours. The two bodies, in fact, were moving as if they were connected; it is difficult to avoid the probable inference that at an earlier stage the two really were one, and that the moon is in reality a fragment of the earth driven off from it by the too-rapid spinning of the earth, or otherwise.
Professor Darwin has also examined the possibility of explaining in a similar way the formation of the satellites of the other planets and of the planets themselves from the sun, but the circumstances of the moon-earth system turn out to be exceptional, and tidal influence has been less effective in other cases, though it gives a satisfactory explanation of certain peculiarities of the planets and their satellites. More recently (1892) Dr. See has applied a somewhat similar line of reasoning to explain by means of tidal action the development of double stars from an earlier nebulous condition.
Speaking generally, we may say that the outcome of the 19th century study of the problem of the early history of the solar system has been to discredit the details of Laplace's hypothesis in a variety of ways, but to establish on a firmer basis the general view that the solar system has been formed by some process of condensation out of an earlier very diffused mass bearing a general resemblance to one of the nebulae which the telescope shews us, and that stars other than the sun are not unlikely to have been formed in a somewhat similar way; and, further, the theory of tidal friction supplements this general but vague theory, by giving a rational account of a process which seems to have been the predominant factor in the development of the system formed by our own earth and moon, and to have had at any rate an important influence in a number of other cases.
