An example of an (historical) alternative conception:
"…for the conservation of the seas and fluids on the planets, comets seem to be required, so that from the condensation of their exhalations and vapours, there can be continual supply and and renewal of whatever liquid is consumed by vegetation and putrefaction and converted into dry earth. For all vegetables grow entirely from fluids and afterward, in great part, change into dry earth by putrefaction, and slime is continually deposited from putrefied liquids. Hence the bulk of dry earth is increased from day to day, and fluids – if they did not have an outside source of increase – would have to decrease continually and finally to fail. Further, I suspect that the spirit which is the smallest but most subtle and most excellent part of our air, and which is required for the life of all things, comes chiefly from comets."
Isaac Newton (1999) Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (3rd edition, 1726): The authoritative translation (I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman), University of California Press
