COSMIC AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 673 



serve all the processes of concentration, of differentiation of parts, and 

 of integration of the whole, as well as those of equilibration, of decom- 

 position, and final dissolution. Not so with the planet. Whatever 

 theory may suggest or require, we are forced to confess a profound 

 ignorance of the final destiny of worlds. So far as we are able to 

 observe, the universal tendency of all matter is from the indefinite 

 and homogeneous to the definite and heterogeneous; from a state of 

 unstable to one of stable equilibrium. But this is only the morning 

 of the life of any aggregate. We have 110 reason to suppose that, in 

 all the myriad worlds of visible space, a single "star presents to our 

 gaze a condition representing the evening of its life. In the light of 

 all our knowledge of the heavenly bodies and of the nebulae, we study 

 with absorbing interest the history of our own planet. From the 

 confused gaseous condition in which it is supposed to have originally 

 been, its motion has been gradually dissipated and its matter inte- 

 grated, until only a comparatively thin envelope of gas the atmos- 

 phere remains. The rest has all assumed either the liquid or the 

 solid form, the latter of which presents the nearest approach to com- 

 plete stable equilibrium. And it can scarcely be doubted that this 

 process still continues, and will continue, until ultimately this omni- 

 present eremacausis shall also reduce the waters and the atmosphere 

 to the condition of stability and solidification a state of planetary 

 existence which many suppose our satellite to have already reached. 



And may not this same law be called in to explain the hetero- 

 geneity of elementary matter, as known to chemistry ? If all matter 

 is primordially identical, as so many philosophers have dreamed, is it 

 not philosophical to assume that our sixty-five known elements repre- 

 sent so many states of heterogeneity, so many distinct kinds of pri- 

 mary aggregates, which the matter of our globe and other worlds has 

 taken on in its course from complete homogeneous instability toward 

 its ultimate condition of stable equilibrium, as represented in what 

 we know as solids ? 



However this may be, it is at least true that, so far as regards 

 purely cosmical processes, the ascending series is the only one observ- 

 able by us. For the " dead star," be it understood, represents, in the 

 grand cycle of the redistribution of matter and motion, the meridian 

 of its lite, and not its close. Complete equilibration is the last act in 

 the drama of evolution, and must be attained before the forces of dis- 

 solution commence their work. But we look in vain for any signs of 

 the dissolution of the universe. Whatever theory may require, the 

 fact ever remains that the process which we see going on in our por- 

 tion of space is the process of evolution only. We see only the inte- 

 gration of matter and the dissipation of motion. We see only the 

 tendency toward the condition of stable equilibrium. We see only 

 the absorption of the gaseous and the establishment of the solid form 

 of matter. All the theories by which it has been sought to compen- 

 Tor,. XI. 43 



