X GEOLOGICAL REFORM 321 



their satellites, for the general agreement in the 

 direction of rotation among the celestial bodies, for 

 Saturn s ring, and for the zodiacal light. He finds 

 in each system of worlds, indications that the 

 attractive force of the central mass will eventually 

 destroy its organisation, by concentrating upon 

 itself the matter of the whole system ; but, as the 

 result of this concentration, he argues for the 

 development of an amount . of heat which will 

 dissipate the mass once more into a molecular 

 chaos such as that in which it began. 



Kant pictures to himself the universe as once 

 an infinite expansion of formless and diffused 

 matter. At one point of this he supposes a single 

 centre of attraction set up ; and, by strict deduc 

 tions from admitted dynamical principles, shows 

 how this must result in the development of a 

 prodigious central body, surrounded by systems 

 of solar and planetary worlds in all stages of 

 development. In vivid language he depicts the 

 great world-maelstrom, widening the margins of its 

 prodigious eddy in the slow progress of millions of 

 ages, gradually reclaiming more and more of the 

 molecular waste, and converting chaos into cosmos. 

 But what is gained at the margin is lost in the 

 centre ; the attractions of the central systems 

 bring their constituents together, which then, by 

 the heat evolved, are converted once more into 

 molecular chaos. Thus the worlds that are, lie 

 between the ruins of the worlds that have been, 



VOL. vni y 



