WHAT WILL BE, WILL BE. 385 



bosom of the earth will attest to passing generations the 

 primordial incandescence of our planet at some epoch when 

 life as yet was not, when the liquid element, hurled far away 

 into space under the form of vapour, exhibited the aspect of 

 a "bearded meteor," or a comet, with blazing nucleus and 

 incandescent tail. Many the changes which since that 

 distant epoch have taken place upon the earth, and many 

 more must occur before our planet ceases to contribute its 

 strain to the grand harmony of the spheres. Our world will 

 end as surely as it once had a beginning : its duration, though 

 it be computed by hundreds of thousands of years, is 

 nothing, will be nothing, compared with that of the revolution 

 of yonder sun, circling, with its wondrous train of planets, 

 around some mysterious centre as yet unknown. And in this 

 period, hitherto incalculable, what chances of perturbation 

 will necessarily arise ? 



Let us suppose that the centre around which oscillates, on 

 the one part, the moon while drawing near and receding from 

 the earth; on the other, the earth while drawing near and 

 receding from the sun : let us suppose that these centres 

 oscillate in the same manner around other centres as yet un- 

 determined, and this hypothesis is very rational, since it is 

 based on the principle that everything moves or changes, it 

 may happen that in these periodical oscillations, one or more 

 of the circulating masses will eventually fall into their focus of 

 attraction, or will start so widely astray that the wheelwork of 

 our world, the various parts of our planetary system, will 

 separate, not to be annihilated, for nothing in the universe 



2 B 



