The corresponding Jovian pair found by Professor Perrine circulate far outside the boundaries of the original Galilean realm, in orbits which interlock as a consequence of their marked difference in eccentricity.[107] They are mutually inclined at an angle of 27 degrees, nor are they supposed actually to intersect, so that collisions are apparently out of the question. Direct movement is indicated, but cannot yet be claimed to belong quite certainly to both objects. We are only beginning to make acquaintance with the submerged populations of the Saturnian and Jovian kingdoms; they are perhaps multitudinous; they are certainly peculiar, and we await impatiently and curiously the further developments of their remarkable behaviour. The one certain inference derivable from the diversity of facts ascertained within the last hundred years is that our world is not (so to speak) machine-made. The _modus operandi_ employed to disengage the planets from their nebulous matrix was not of cast-iron rigidity; it was adaptable to circumstances; it left room for the display of boundless inventiveness in details. This was made, nevertheless, to consist with the perfect preservation of the main order, both in design and operation. The general plan is broadly laid down and unmistakable; the springs of the machine are undisturbed in their free play, and for the primary reason that departures from regularity, which might, in any way, prove a menace to stability, affect bodies of negligible mass. The great swing of settled movement goes on irrespectively of them. 'De minimis non curat lex.' So the erratic procedure of comets is harmless only because of their insignificance. If imitated by substantially attractive masses, it could not fail to jeopardize the planetary adjustments. Even the asteroids would be unsafe neighbours but for their impotence; and it is remarkable that Mercury, by far the smallest of the major planets, circulates along a track of the asteroidal type. It would seem as if an important size carried with it an obligation to revolve in an orbit of small eccentricity, inclined at a low angle to the principal plane of the system. The reason why this should be so is not obvious; but were it otherwise the equilibrium, now so firmly established, would subsist precariously, or not at all.