SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 58 



Chemistry and Astronomy. 



The indications of paleontology and biology 

 respecting Evolution have been corroborated by 

 the revelations of chemistry, astronomy and stellar 

 physics. Everything seems to point conclusively to 

 a development from the simple to the complex, and 

 to disclose "a change from the homogenous to the 

 heterogenous through continuous differentiations and 

 integrations." 



It is simple elements that go toward building up 

 organic and inorganic compounds. And while it is 

 now generally believed that there are some three 

 score and odd substances which are to be classed as 

 elementary, there are, nevertheless, not wanting rea- 

 sons for thinking that all the so-called elements are 

 but so many modifications, so many allotropic forms, 

 of one and the same primal kind of matter. The 

 telescope discloses to us in the nebulae which fleck 

 the heavens, the primitive matter, the Urstoff, from 

 which the sidereal universe was formed : " the gas- 

 eous raw material of future stars and solar systems." 

 The spectroscope, in spite of Comte's dogmatic dec- 

 laration, that we should never know anything about 

 the chemical constitution of the stars, has not only 

 given us positive knowledge regarding the composi- 

 tion of the heavenly bodies, but, thanks to the la- 

 bors of Secchi, Huggins, Lockyer and others, has 

 also furnished information concerning their relative 

 ages, their directions of motion, and their velocities 

 in space. 



As the astronomer, the chemist, and the physicist 

 view the material universe, it is constituted throughout 



