Every particle in the wooden ball rolling on the
floor has astronomical path, molecular path, and
molar path. Consider one of these particles moving
with the three kinds of motion as three constituents
of path, and we realize that its speed is very
great, and that the path which it traverses is greatly
composite; that is, composed of deflected parts, in a
hierarchy of bodies. If such a particle had its com-
posite path straightened into a right-line path it



158 TRUTH AND ERROR

would quickly pass out of the sphere of the solar
system from whatever point within the system it
might start, and in whatever direction the right-line
path extended. But the molecule remains within
the solar system because its stellar path is composite,
and it remains within the ball because its molar i>ath
is composite, and it remains within the molecule
because its molecular path is composite.
