Notwithstanding the generality and importance of these results, it still remained to be determined whether the force resided in the centres of the planets, or belonged to each individual particle of which they were composed. Newton removed this uncertainty by demonstrating, that if a spherical body acts upon a distant body with a force varying as the distance of this body from the centre of the sphere, the same effect will be produced as if each of its particles acted upon the distant body according to the same law. And hence it follows that the spheres, whether they are of uniform density, or consist of concentric layers, with densities varying according to any law whatever, will act upon each other in the same manner as if their force resided in their centres alone. But as the bodies of the solar system are very nearly spherical, they will all act upon one another, and upon bodies placed on their surface, as if they were so many centres of attraction; and therefore we obtain the law of gravity which subsists between spherical bodies, namely, that one sphere will act upon another with a force directly proportional to the quantity of matter, and inversely as the square of the distance between the centres of the spheres. From the equality of action and reaction, to which no exception can be found, Newton concluded that the sun gravitated to the planets, and the planets to their satellites; and the earth itself to the stone which falls upon its surface; and, consequently, that the two mutually gravitating bodies approached to one another with velocities inversely proportional to their quantities of matter. Having established this universal law, Newton was enabled, not only to determine the weight which the same body would have at the surface of the sun and the planets, but even to calculate the quantity of matter in the sun, and in all the planets that had satellites, and even to determine the density or specific gravity of the matter of which they were composed. In this way he found that the weight of the same body would be twenty-three times greater at the surface of the sun than at the surface of the earth, and that the density of the earth was four times greater than that of the sun, the planets increasing in density as they receded from the centre of the system. If the peculiar genius of Newton has been displayed in his investigation of the law of universal gravitation, it shines with no less lustre in the patience and sagacity with which he traced the consequences of this fertile principle.