The question arises as to the nature of these disturbing forces. From what we have already learned of the mutual deranging influence between any two planets, it seems natural to inquire whether the irregularities of Uranus could not be accounted for by the attraction of the other planets. Uranus revolves just outside Saturn. The mass of Saturn is much larger than the mass of Uranus. Could it not be that Saturn draws Uranus aside, and thus causes the changes? This is a question to be decided by the mathematician. He can compute what Saturn is able to do, and he finds, no doubt, that Saturn is capable of producing some displacement of Uranus. In a similar manner Jupiter, with his mighty mass, acts on Uranus, and produces a disturbance which the mathematician calculates. When the figures had been worked out for all the known planets they were applied to Uranus, and we might expect to find that they would fully account for the observed irregularities of his path. This was, however, not the case. After every known source of disturbance had been carefully allowed for, Uranus was still shown to be influenced by some further agent; and hence the conclusion was established that Uranus must be affected by some unknown body. What could this unknown body be, and where must it be situated? Analogy was here the guide of those who speculated on this matter. We know no cause of disturbance of a planet's motion except it be the attraction of another planet. Could it be that Uranus was really attracted by some other planet at that time utterly unknown? This suggestion was made by many astronomers, and it was possible to determine some conditions which the unknown body should fulfil. In the first place its orbit must lie outside the orbit of Uranus. This was necessary, because the unknown planet must be a large and massive one to produce the observed irregularities. If, therefore, it were nearer than Uranus, it would be a conspicuous object, and must have been discovered long ago. Other reasonings were also available to show that if the disturbances of Uranus were caused by the attraction of a planet, that body must revolve outside the globe discovered by Herschel. The general analogies of the planetary system might also be invoked in support of the hypothesis that the path of the unknown planet, though necessarily elliptic, did not differ widely from a circle, and that the plane in which it moved must also be nearly coincident with the plane of the earth's orbit.