191 1.] SEE— THE NEW COSMOGONY. 265 



14. The causes which have operated in the development of our 

 solar system are thus general throughout the sidereal universe. 

 Everywhere repulsive forces are dispersing fine dust from the stars 

 to form the nebula", and the nebulae in turn are settling down and 

 whirling around to form stars with planetary systems about them. 



15. Professor Barnard's magnificent photographs of the Milky 

 Way show that cosmical dust everywhere pervades the heavenly 

 spaces. And it is proved that variable stars are due chiefly to 

 attendant bodies revolving in resisting media. When considerable 

 bodies come into collision, as a large planet with a sun, the result 

 is a temporary star or Nova. 



16. The new cosmogony thus embraces within its scope the chief 

 problems of the universe, and the dynamical causes assigned are 

 deduced from simple phenomena operating according to known laws 

 which are actually verified in the solar system. The arrangement 

 of the nebulffi on either side of the ^Milky Way is the natural out- 

 come of the operation of repulsive forces, the canopy of nebulse con- 

 gregating as far from the stratum of stars as possible. This assigns 

 a known cause for the great order of nature first brought to light by 

 the telescopic explorations of the elder HerscheHn 1785. 



Like astronomy itself it is obvious that cosmogony is at once the 

 oldest and newest of the physical sciences. Having renewed its 

 youth by the introduction of definite principles and exact methods, 

 it has recently taken on such vigor that it promises to become the 

 most majestic of the sciences. Nothing is more worthy of the at- 

 tention of philosophers than the study of the great laws of the phy- 

 sical universe, and the marvelous processes of development by which 

 the beauty and order of the cosmos came about. This was the 

 great problem which gave rise to the development of the physical 

 sciences among the Greeks, and it will always occupy a position of 

 transcendent importance in the domain of natural philosophy. 



U. S. Naval Observatory. 

 Mare Island, California, 

 April 3, 191 1. 



