24 UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



but of a personality above ; or beyond, and producing 

 phenomena. 



It must be understood, also, that a separate system, 

 like the solar, or the nebula, is constantly losing energy 

 in the form of heat, by condensation. It is a curious 

 fact that it may lose heat and yet retain its tempera- 

 ture. As it loses energy its motion decreases, and as 

 its motions change, so does the relative position of its 

 bodies. At the same time the relativity of its atoms 

 changes; but there is no evidence that they will ever 

 come to absolute rest even when all its matter comes 

 together in one body. The movement of the atoms, in 

 the process of condensation, is called arrested motion. 

 The term "separate system," used above, must be 

 taken to mean separate in form only. There is no 

 "system," in reality separate, from the general monis- 

 tic system, constituting what we call Nature. 



THE PLANETESIMAL THEORY. A modification of the 

 nebular theory has been made by certain scientists. 

 Comets and many so called stars consist of swarms of 

 meteorites, which though normally cold and dark are 

 heated by repeated collisions, and thus become luminous. 

 In time, the force of gravity condenses the meteoric 

 swarm into a single globe. The parentage of the solar 

 system is a spiral nebula, composed of planetesimals, 

 and the planets, such as the earth, are formed from knots 

 in the nebula, where many planetesimals have been con- 

 centrated, near the intersection of their orbits. Then 

 these groups of meteorites, already as solid as a swarm of 

 bees, are packed closer by the influence of gravity. The 

 contracting mass is heated by the pressure above the 

 normal melting point of the material, but is kept rigid 

 by the weight of the overlying mass. It is evident that 

 this theory is as much in accordance with the theory 



