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comprehend the origin either of nature or of nature's 

 laws. But given those laws, the inquisitive human in- 

 tellect can grasp their sequence- withoust difficulty, tra- 

 cing effects to causes and causes from effects. Looking 

 at the planets we saw that those further from their 'sun 

 boasted the most satellites; those which were nearer, 

 fewer. The significance of such planetary satellites was 

 indicated in the description of our moon. The moons 

 were not supplied to the planets from their birth, but 

 were added with their growth. Added, that is to say 

 they possessed, themselves, an existence independent of 

 the planets before they fell under planetary influence, 

 and only became the servants of these larger globes 

 later on. In the table of our solar system the reader 

 will remark the small planets or asteroids of which, as 

 I, said, 300 have been abready investigated. These aste- 

 roids lie at a distance of from three to five hundred 

 million versts from the sun, and there is little doubt but 

 that similar bodies are to be found everywhere throu- 

 ghout the universe. Nothing then could be more natural 

 than tint a planet approaching perfection should attract 

 such bodies by its energy and convert them into moons. 

 The source of these little planets called asteroids is 

 and clearly must be, the sun, which therefore appears in 

 a new light as a star or planet in the ecstasy of child- 

 birth. Though astronomical science docs not recognize 

 that the sun bears planets and my argument is confes- 

 sedly hypothetical it is hypothesis with scientific ground 

 which I will now produce in justification of my idea. 



All geologists are agreed that our earth in its origin 

 presented a molten mass which in the process of hun- 

 dreds of thousands of years gradually cooled. Not to 

 believe science is to disbelieve nature and life itself; but 

 if our earth was originally a molten mass as science 

 alleges we would ask from whence could such a mass 

 appear ? 



We know that by a fundamental law of the universe 

 there can be no effect without a cause; we must there- 



