THE WORLD BEYOND OUR SENSES 



Could we, by some magic, exist corporeally in 

 realms like this, we should probably find it a 

 singularly uninteresting world. Four-fifths of the 

 variety and interest of life we get via our eyes, 

 and in a world of fire-mist there would be nothing 

 to see, nothing solid whereon to stand, no dif- 

 ference as we turned right or left, no change any- 

 where. It would be much the same sensation, 

 perhaps, as that which comes when you are shut 

 in by a London fog. 



Could our senses reach out to the stars, we 

 should, no doubt, find other suns hotter still. Our 

 sun is a little yellowish, and there are others, like 

 Orion, which give a reddish light, while great Sir- 

 ius, vaster far in bulk than our sun, glows with 

 an intense and brilliant white. Red, yellow, and 

 white stand, in the heating of metals iron, for 

 example for increasing degrees of heat. This 

 has suggested the idea that Orion and its like are 

 rather cooler, Sirius and its like far hotter, than 

 our luminary. The breaking-up of most chemical 

 compounds by heating has suggested, too, that 

 if the "elements" are really decomposable in the 

 hotter stars, we should find fewer of them. This 

 is just what happens. 



In the spectrum, every "element" gives a per- 

 fectly distinct set of "lines," or bands, so that the 

 spectroscopist may take any substance, and, heat- 



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