COSMICAL PHENOMENA OF LIGHT. 105 



converted into the matter of planets and satel- 

 lites? 



This theory enables us to answer the important 

 question, " What becomes of light?" while it 

 affords a more intelligible explanation of the 

 manner in which cosmical bodies are generated 

 and finally destroyed, than any merely meta- 

 physical hypothesis unless by metaphysics we 

 understand the universal Science of Ontology, 

 or of whatever exists.* It also enables us to 

 comprehend why the distances of the planets 

 from each other augment in nearly definite ratios, 

 from Mercury to Uranus; why they increase in 

 magnitude (if we except Mars and the asteroids) 

 from Mercury to Jupiter ; and why their equa- 

 torial exceeds their polar diameters. For ex- 



* Nor is this altogether a new hypothesis : for it was main- 

 tained by the early Hindoo Cosmogonists, that there is a creation 

 and destruction of innumerable worlds in eternal succession ; that 

 they all emanate from the Divine Being, and after long periods 

 of time are resorbed into the primitive fountain of their existence ; 

 a doctrine which certainly had its origin in the general belief of 

 the ancients, that the sun was the Supreme Being. And we are 

 informed by Brucker, that the oriental theory of emanations was 

 adopted by some of the older Greek philosophers. Hence the 

 doctrine of Heraclitus, that all things were originally formed from 

 fire, (which is light or flame,) and must again return to the same 

 state. (Diogenes, lib. ix. s. 8, p. 552.) We are also told in 

 the first chapter of Genesis, that light was created before the 

 earth, or even the sun, moon, and stars. Nor is it more difficult 

 to comprehend the generation of worlds from the matter of light, 

 than that they should have been created out of nothing ; or from 

 a gradual contraction of the sun's atmosphere, as maintained by 

 Laplace. 



