278 From Matter to Man. 



which germinated not only comets and meteors, but 

 the vital nuclei of planets. In due time, therefore, 

 the sun travailed, and by like-central-rcpulsion and 

 the aid of volcanic forces vastly greater than now, she 

 was delivered at intervals of the giant planets — 

 Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn ; followed by 

 the smaller Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury, etc., until, 

 through the incessant waste of material and energy 

 entailed by her maternity, she became so gradually 

 reduced in size and enervated in function as to beget 

 only comets and meteors. This delivery of bodies, 

 she may still perform intermittently, hence a. time may 

 come when, by shrinking to less in mass than her 

 planets, she may lose her magnetic hold on them, and 

 they unchecked and unguided shall become scattered 

 and lost to each other in the wastes of the void ; 

 while she herself dark, cold, and barren, may drift 

 away in space, either to become swallowed up in 

 another catastrophe, or from mistress of a system of 

 worlds to perform servile lunar functions to an in- 

 significant planet like our own. 



The planets, in turn in their active youth, probably 

 ejected their own moons, comets, and meteors, until 

 having cooled down to the temperature of the earth, 

 the same material energies entered on the more 

 important automatic creation of minerals, vegetals, 

 animals, and man. 



Few of the planets, however, seem to be as habitable 

 as our globe, yet this is probably due to our ignorance, 

 and perhaps long before all have quitted their sun-like 



