December. 1911. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



457 



; oil! II phfltog 



temperature heat is almost entirelythe final result. To 

 get enerj:;v out of heat, there must he what is called 

 a refrigerator, in order 

 that this fall of tem- 

 perature may partly be 

 converted into motion 

 of mass. This motion 

 of mass will do work, 

 and the work changes 

 the motion of mass into 

 motion of molecule, and 

 this into the vibration 

 of the trembling ether. 

 So again the volume of 

 the Sun diminishes and 

 the pressure is increased. 

 The fall of the molecules 

 towards the centre 

 makes them move faster 

 and so the general tem- 

 perature of the Sun is 

 increased. But vast 

 quantities of this aug- 

 mented heat are poured 

 out in a ceaseless flow of 

 radiation, some of which 

 falls upon the planets to 

 be radiated again into 

 space, but most of it 

 speeds outwards in all 

 directions in an apparent 

 prodigality of waste that 

 philosophically appears 

 to be surprising. It is 

 the general idea that 

 this falls partly upon 

 the dust of space and 

 is partly sent to almost 

 infinitely distant regions. 

 We get from all these 

 ideas Lord Kelvin's the- 

 ory of dissipated energy, 

 which the Germans call 

 "warm death." 



Aggregation of 

 Matter. 



On the other hand 

 matter tends to aggre- 

 gate. Suns are of all ages, 

 incipient, voung, mature, 

 aged, and dead. A pair of 

 dead suns in coming into 

 complete collision be- 

 come vivid again, and 

 their luminosity may last 

 a hundred million years, 

 but this period is a mere 

 breath in eternity. They 

 again die, and may again 



all the matter of the Universe collected into one life- 

 less globe, and all the energy of the Universe dis- 

 persed into endless 

 space ? Such was the 

 opinion firmly held some 

 fifty years ago, and it 

 continued to be held for 

 fulh' a quarter of a 

 century. Then chinks 

 began to appear in the 

 walls of this dismal 

 dungeon of thought, and 

 a little light has entered. 

 Although official science 

 still refuses to use this 

 hopeful light, average 

 humanity never quite 

 entered the dungeon, and 

 many minds now stand 

 in tile full light of the 

 optimistic thought of a 

 scheme of creation, infi- 

 nite, eternal and flawless. 



FlGUKl 



Nebulae in the Pleiades. December Sth. ISSS. 



Ycrkci Oh 



hs 



Two New Agencies. 



We have to ask : Are 

 there agencies that in 

 addition to concentrating 

 matter, can distribute it : 

 in addition to degrading 

 energy, can elevate it. 

 Certainly there appear 

 to be such agencies. 

 The collisions of suns 

 can scarcely ever be di- 

 rectly centre to centre : 

 ever\' law of cosruic 

 motion tends to make 

 the orbits of colliding 

 suns into curves, and no 

 pair of bodies that are 

 moving in independent 

 orbits can possibly col- 

 lide directly centre to 

 centre. Hence oblique 

 impact must be the cos- 

 mic law. These grazing 

 iiu pacts have already 

 been show n to take place 

 with such stupendous 

 s[)eed that the partial 

 impact cannot stop the 

 stars. A third body is 

 produced. If the graze 

 be of a small ratio, this 

 third body w ill form an 

 independent star of such 

 supreme power, so stu- 

 pendously hot, as to he 

 another collision, thermodynamically unstable, and to blow- itself to 



FiGl'KE 4. 



Great Nebula in Orion. 



October iQi'i^ icol. 



Is this rollinii up to go on until the entire contents isolated atoms. When the temperature of the mass 

 of the great celestial vault is one huge dead cinder ? becomes approximately uniform the kmetol of the 



