20 THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE 



well as ours, or else their light woxild not reach us. 

 What if all our stars and planets and nebulas — all 

 the matter of the universe — were evolved out of this 

 ether ! Clearly this is one of the greatest and most 

 comprehensive ideas that physical science ever gave 

 to man. 



. There is now very strong reason to believe this. 

 Since the discovery of radium, and all the other dis- 

 coveries to which this led, our scientific men are con- 

 vinced that the atom of matter is built of very minute 

 centres of energy in ether (electrons). The simplest 

 atom may contain more than a thousand of them, 

 whirling round at speeds approaching 100,000 miles a 

 second. The atoms of the heavier metals contain 

 hundreds of thousands of them. The atoms are 

 orderly "systems" of electrons, just as universes are 

 orderly systems of stars. And it is probable that 

 natural selection has been at work in checking the 

 evolution of both systems: the one, the atom, so 

 small that trillions would go into a pin's head; the 

 other, the universe, thousands of billions of miles 

 in extent.* 



Here, then, we have the answer to the last ques- 

 tion: Where did the matter which makes the stars 

 come from? Apparently from ether. Where did 

 the ether come from? We have no reason to sup- 

 pose that it came from anywhere. It may be the 

 fundamental reality, from the bosom of which 

 matter rises, to form stars which glow for hundreds 



