1 62 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY. 



seen even on this immeasurable fire, which nature has 

 lighted to be the torch of the world. There is a time 

 coming when it will come to be extinguished. The with- 

 drawal of the most volatile and rare materials which, when 

 dispersed by the violence of the heat, never return again, 

 but increase the matter of the Zodiacal Light ; the accu- 

 mulation of incombustible or burned-out material, such as 

 ashes on the surface ; and, lastly, the want of air, will put 

 an end to the sun. Then its flame will be extinguished, 

 and eternal darkness will occupy the place which is now 

 the centre of light and life to the whole world. The inter- 

 mittent efforts of its fire to revive again through breaking 

 open new chasms, by which it will perhaps restore itself 

 several times before its final disappearance, might furnish 

 an explanation of the vanishing and reappearing of some of 

 the fixed stars. These may be regarded as suns which 

 are near their extinction, and which still, strive at times 

 to revive out of their ashes. Whether this explanation 

 merits approval or not, yet the view may certainly be 

 admitted so far as it serves to show that, as an inevitable 

 decay threatens the perfection of all the world-formations 

 in one way or another, no difficulty will be found in 

 explaining the above stated law of their destruction by 

 the mere tendency of their mechanical constitution. And 

 it becomes especially deserving of acceptance, because it 

 brings with it the germs of a renovation, even when they 

 are mixed and confounded with chaos. 



Lastly, let us now bring near, as it were, to the 

 imagination such a marvellous object as a burning sun is. 

 At a [glance we see vast seas of fire which raise their 

 flames to*[the sky; raging tempests whose fury doubles 

 the violence of the flaming seas, and makes them swell 



