231. The sun cannot be in the absolute middle of the solar system, on account of its antagonism with the planets, which would likewise become the centre. The collective mass of the planets is the secession of the sun from the centre. The situation of the sun or the degree of its excentricity bears relation to the polar force of the planets. The form, under which the solar system really exists, cannot therefore be the sphere, but the ellipse, i. e. the duplicity of the centre.
232. The sphere is only the type of the universe, of the æther, but not of the solar system nor the Finite. No Finite is absolutely spherical. As the real universe can only exist in a bicentral condition, so is there in this respect also no universal central body. It is there, but under the form of bicentrality, as sun and planet. God only is monocentral. The world is the bicentral God, God the monocentral world, which is the same with monas and dyas. The primary polarity, the dyas, the radiality, the light establishes itself in nature as bicentrality, which is the cosmogenic expression for self-manifestation or self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is a living ellipse.
233. The bicentrality determines the distance of the planets from the sun. If the sun as the active pole be strong or energetic, the planets will occupy a remote situation; if it be feeble or weak, one that is near. The strength of the polar energy depends, however, upon the quantity of the mass. Were the mass of the sun less, all the planets would range nearer to it; were it greater, they would be all driven further off, as electricity repels the pith-balls of elder-wood; more than this the planets are not towards the sun, but even less. The energy of the solar polarization depends not merely upon its magnitude, but also upon the velocity of rotation, which harmonizes with the former; the latter, however, depends upon the original velocity of rotation of the æther. The velocity of the rotation of æther being assumed as definite, that of the sun must be definite also, and with this everything accords.
234. The circumvolution of the planets around the sun is a _polar_ process of _attraction_ and _repulsion_, by virtue of the primary law in the solar system, by virtue of the light. The planet then can only be repelled in the neighbourhood of the sun from the sun, when it has the _same_ solar pole in itself, when it has become positive; and can only attract it at a distance from the sun, when it has received the opposite pole to the sun, or has become negative.