It cannot be denied that if spectroscopic analysis had demonstrated that the elements in the sun were totally different from the elements in the earth a serious blow would have been dealt to the nebular theory. The collateral evidence, strong as it undoubtedly is, might hardly have withstood so damaging an admission. If, on the other hand, we find, as we actually have found, that the elements in the sun and the elements in the earth are practically identical, we obtain the most striking corroboration of the truth of the nebular theory. Had Kant and Laplace been aware of this most significant fact, they would probably have cited it as most important testimony. They would have pointed out that the iron so abundant in the earth beneath our feet is also abundant in the sun overhead. They would, I doubt not, if they had known it, have dwelt upon the circumstance that with that element, carbon, which enters into every organic body on this earth, our sun is also richly supplied, and they would have hardly failed to allude to the wide distribution in space of calcium, hydrogen, and many other well-known elements. Laplace mainly based his belief in the nebular theory on some remarkable deductions from the theory of probabilities. To the consideration of these we proceed in the next three chapters. We may, however, remark at the outset that if the evidence derived from probabilities seemed satisfactory to Laplace one hundred years ago, this same line of evidence, strengthened as it has been by recent discoveries, is enormously more weighty, at the present day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIV. THE FIRST CONCORD. Certain Remarkable Coincidences—The Plane of Movement of a Planet—Consideration of Planes of Several Planetary Orbits—A Characteristic of the Actual Planetary Motions not to be Explained by Chance—The First Concord—The Planes not at Random—A Division of the Right Angle—Statement of the Coincidences—An Illustration by Parable—The Cause of the Coincidences—The Argument Strengthened by the Asteroids—An Explanation by the Nebular Theory.