AN EARLIER BEGINNING. 205 



posed of minute liquid particles floating in a gaseous medium 

 like the cloud of steam condensed in the air after escaping 

 from the boiler. There may be mineral vapors as well as 

 igneous vapors. Most mineral vapors must be intensely heated. 

 We may call such a vapor "fire-mist." If the earth were 

 vaporized by heat, to what limits in space would the vapor 

 extend? We must think of that. If the earth was ever a 

 fire-mist globe its dimensions were vastly greater than at 

 present. 



There is another thought to be mentioned here. The earth 

 is only one of a system of worlds, and there is good reason for 

 believing that any remote origin which we can establish for 

 the earth must represent the remote origin of the other planets. 

 In saying they are one system, I refer to their common motions 

 about one sun ; to the common elliptic form of their orbits ; to 

 the fact that all move from west to east; that all revolve 

 nearly in one plane ; that, so far as ascertained, they all rotate 

 on their axes ; and all rotate from west to east ; that the forms 

 and movements of all, and of all the satellites, are conformed 

 to one set of laws, and that all we know of other planets, 

 points to a fundamental correspondence and identity between 

 them. 



This conclusion vastly enlarges our field. We must think 

 of each of the planets heated up to a fire-mist condition. It 

 is easier to think the sun also heated to such condition, since 

 he is at present not so far removed from it as the planets. 

 Now, when all these bodies were in that heated condition 

 which maintained them in a fire-mist state, the whole space of 

 the solar system must have been filled with fire-mist. Notice, 

 that I do not say it was fire-mist of any specified density. 

 The density of vapor depends on the proximity of the liquid 

 floating particles, to each other. There may have been a 

 diffused very thin gas also, in which the liquid particles 

 floated. Still, I do not conceive such gas necessary. These 

 particles some of which may even have been solid would 

 have weight smaller than imagination can conceive. They 

 were not particles like those of our clouds, influenced by the 



