224 THE NEW KNOWLEDGE. 



the condition of our own sun and Arcturus in the full pos- 

 session of most of the elements we find on earth, and, even- 

 tually, into the condition of a dark star, extinct and dead, 

 like our earth itself. This progress of a nebulous swarm of 

 meteorites to a dark star, is illustrated, diagrammatically, by 

 Lockyer in the accompanying temperature curve. Fig. 54. 

 But the interesting question yet remains. Is this curve of 

 ascent and descent, which is deemed to be common to every 

 star in the universe, open or closed ? What is the relation 

 between the dark stars at the end of the process and the 

 meteorites at the beginning. If the swarms of complex me- 

 teorites pass up into the simplicity of the hottest stars and 

 back again to the complexity of the dark stars and common 

 earth, do the dark stars become meteorites again and con- 

 tinue the process infinitely in a circle of change, or, to re- 

 vert to the question at the head of the chapter, is the uni- 

 verse a clock running down ? We see, at any rate, evidence 

 of a regenerating influence at work, and that if we have an 

 inorganic evolution we also have an inorganic devolution, 

 but in the light of this present chapter that is all that can 

 be said.. We shall discuss this question from a totally dif- 

 ferent point of view in Chapter III Part VII. 



