THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



look at our strange cleft milky way we are 

 looking into the yawning spiral windings of this 

 cosmic architectural plan. Near the middle of 

 the broad spiral floats our own sun as a small 

 fixed star, constantly moving on with the prog- 

 ress of the whole. The sun nioves toward the 

 constellation of Hercules* with a speed of not 

 less than eighteen and a half miles per second. 

 Following the sun and in a certain relation to 

 it are small bodies, splinters, mere individual 

 stones in the spiral structure. Among them is 

 the earth. Between star and star is endless 

 space, boundless are the black depths, millions 

 of miles between sun and planet, billions be- 

 tween sun and sun. We grow dizzy and seek a 

 point of support for our phantasy. In imag- 

 ination we climb on one of the meteoric iron 

 blocks, that finest falling dust of the world 

 structure which constantly whirls through the 

 space between all suns and planets occasionally 

 plunging down to us in the form of meteor 

 stones. Rushing faster than the swiftest can- 

 non ball this metal block has already left the 

 glowing furnace crater of the sun lying to one 

 side and plunges into the planetary space. Now 

 it shoots suddenly with increased momentum to- 

 ward an especially clear white planet that looks 



*It is within this constellation that the point toward which 

 the sun with its accompanying system of planets is traveling at 

 present is situated. — Trans. 



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