AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 75 



While, then, attraction is a strain toward simple unity, 

 in that it tends to concentrate all into a single totality, it 

 proves also to be a strain toward the heterogeneous, in that 

 it tends to develop a multiplicity of qualitative differences 

 within that total. And so, also, on the other hand, while 

 repulsion is a strain toward infinite multiplicity, in that it 

 is a continuous outputting or development of yet other 

 ones from the total one, it proves also to be none the less 

 a strain toward the homogeneous, since it is, after all, a 

 development of " ones," each qualitatively indistinguish- 

 able from the others; the result being a cancellation or 

 annulment of qualitative differences. Condensation 

 means increased tension, and increased tension means 

 increased complexity of matter; just as, on the con- 

 trary, rarefaction means decreased tension, and de- 

 creased tension means decreased complexity of matter. 



Such is the logical conclusion to which the argument 

 thus far leads. And this conclusion is distinctly in agree- 

 ment with the results of the most searching investigations 

 in physical science, and especially with the brilliant results 

 achieved by means of the spectroscope, in connection with 

 the nebular hypothesis. * 



It is well known that, previous to the invention of this 

 remarkable instrument, there was no means of answering 

 the question whether certain cloud-like patches in the 

 heavens consisted of diffuse incandescent matter, or of 

 star-clusters so distant that, to the eye of an observer 

 from the earth, their light blended together. With the 

 invention of the spectroscope, however, scientists found 

 themselves in possession of an instrument that revealed 



* See the special works on "Spectrum Analysis,' 1 '' by Schellen and by 

 Lockyer, the latter in the "International Science Series." 



