COR. 16. Therefore if the figures of the orbits and their inclination to each other be given, and the magnitudes, forces, and distances of the bodies be any how changed, we may, from the errors and times of those errors in[Pg 211] one case, collect very nearly the errors and times of the errors in any other case. But this may be done more expeditiously by the following method. The forces NM, ML, other things remaining unaltered, are as the radius TP; and their periodical effects (by Cor. 2, Lem. X) are as the forces and the square of the periodical time of the body P conjunctly. These are the linear errors of the body P; and hence the angular errors as they appear from the centre T (that is, the motion of the apsides and of the nodes, and all the apparent errors as to longitude and latitude) are in each revolution of the body P as the square of the time of the revolution, very nearly. Let these ratios be compounded with the ratios in Cor. 14, and in any system of bodies T, P, S, where P revolves about T very near to it, and T revolves about S at a great distance, the angular errors of the body P, observed from the centre T, will be in each revolution of the body P as the square of the periodical time of the body P directly, and the square of the periodical time of the body T inversely. And therefore the mean motion of the line of the apsides will be in a given ratio to the mean motion of the nodes; and both those motions will be as the periodical time of the body P directly, and the square of the periodical time of the body T inversely. The increase or diminution of the eccentricity and inclination of the orbit PAB makes no sensible variation in the motions of the apsides and nodes, unless that increase or diminution be very great indeed. COR. 17. Since the line LM becomes sometimes greater and sometimes less than the radius PT, let the mean quantity of the force LM be expressed by that radius PT; and then that mean force will be to the mean force SK or SN (which may be also expressed by ST) as the length PT to the length ST. But the mean force SN or ST, by which the body T is retained in the orbit it describes about S, is to the force with which the body P is retained in its orbit about T in a ratio compounded of the ratio of the radius ST to the radius PT, and the duplicate ratio of the periodical time of the body P about T to the periodical time of the body T about S. And, ex æquo, the mean force LM is to the force by which the body P is retained in its orbit about T (or by which the same body P might revolve at the distance PT in the same periodical time about any immovable point T) in the same duplicate ratio of the periodical times. The periodical times therefore being given, together with the distance PT, the mean force LM is also given; and that force being given, there is given also the force MN, very nearly, by the analogy of the lines PT and MN. [Pg 212]