CHAPTER XVII. 



The Evolution of Worlds. 



A STUDY of those theories which advocate the volcanic 

 origin of comets and meteors* induces us to hazard 

 the following hypothesis regarding the evolution, or 

 origin, development, and cyclic life-history of all suns 

 and solar systems. This hypothesis may fitly enough 

 for to-day form the keystone to our whole scheme of 

 automatic evolution and devolution, and round the 

 cycle of universal existence. 



The evolution of worlds and the evolution of the 

 inhabitants of worlds, are problems which differ more 

 in detail than in cause. If the one is self-made, so 

 is the other. Both the world and its progeny are 

 phenomena. Both are ephemeral, not permanent. 

 Both bask in the sun's rays for a time, live a longer 

 or shorter interval, then meet their doom, disperse 

 into fragments, and start another existence in another 

 form. Disaster, death, or dissolution is the destiny 



* "Whence come the Comets?" R. A. Proctor. Nineteenth 

 Century \ May 1886. 



