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SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Work 

 World 



that there is no spontaneous generation of 

 life? It is meant that the passage from the 

 mineral world Jto the plant or animal world 

 is hermetically sealed on the mineral side. 

 This inorganic world is staked off from the 

 living world by barriers which have never 

 yet been crossed from within. . . . Only 

 by the bending down into this dead world 

 of some living form can these dead atoms 

 be gifted with the properties of vitality; 

 without this preliminary contact with life 

 they remain fixed in the inorganic sphere 

 forever. It is a very mysterious law which 

 guards in this way the portals of the living 

 world. And if there is one thing in Nature 

 more worth pondering for its strangeness 

 it is the spectacle of this vast, helpless 

 world of the dead cut off from the living 

 by the law of biogenesis and denied forever 

 the possibility of resurrection within itself. 

 So very strange a thing, indeed, is this broad 

 line in Nature that science has long and 

 urgently sought to obliterate it. Biogenesis 

 stands in the way of some forms of evolu- 

 tion with such stern persistency that the 

 assaults upon this law for number and thor- 

 oughness have been unparalleled. But, as 

 we have seen, it has stood the test. Nature, 

 to the modern eye, stands broken in two. 

 " The present state of knowledge furnishes 

 us with no link between the living and the 

 not-living.". ( Huxley, " Encyclopaedia Bri- 

 tannica," new ed., art. "Biology.") 

 DUUMMOND Natural Law in the Spiritual 

 World, essay 1, p. 61. (H. Al.) 



3775. WORLD LIGHTED BY A 

 BLUE AND AN ORANGE SUN Its Strange 

 Varieties of Day and Night. In the first 

 place, let us take the case where the world 

 is between the orange sun and the blue 

 one, and let us suppose that the season cor- 

 responds to our spring. Then it is mani- 

 fest that since one sun illumines one side 

 of the globe, and the other illumines the 

 other, there can be no night; it is orange 

 day to one half of the world, and blue day 

 to the other. Moreover, since the season 

 corresponds to our springtime, it follows 

 that orange day lasts exactly as long as 

 blue day, and using for convenience the di- 

 vision of the day into twenty-four hours 

 (which may or may not be nearly the same 

 as our terrestrial hours), there are, all over 

 the world, twelve hours of orange day and 

 twelve hours of blue day. This, however, 

 would not last very long, any more than 

 on our own earth we have Jupiter visible 

 all night for any length of time. The blue 

 sun would gradually take up the position 

 which Jupiter has when he is an evening 

 star. . . . The blue sun would, in fact, 

 rise before the orange sun had set. Thus 

 there would be orange day as before, but 

 towards orange sunset there would be two 

 suns, the orange sun nearing the west, the 

 blue sun passing over the eastern horizon. 

 Then would come orange sunset and blue 



day; but the blue sun would set before the 

 orange sun rose, and there would be, there- 

 fore, a short night, tho, no doubt, not a dark 

 night, since there would be blue twilight in 

 the west and orange twilight in the east. 

 Gradually the length of this night would 

 increase, the length of the double day also 

 increasing, but the orange and blue hours 

 gradually shortening. At- length the blue 

 sun would have drawn quite near to the 

 place of the orange sun in the heavens, and 

 there would be double day and night, but 

 neither orange day nor blue day alone. 

 The double day would probably be white, 

 since the colors of the two suns are sup- 

 posed to be complementary. After this the 

 blue sun would pass to the other side (the 

 west) of the orange sun, and would be 

 placed like Jupiter when he is a morning 

 sun. There would then be blue morning, 

 white day, orange evening, and night, the 

 night gradually growing shorter and short- 

 er, until at length the blue sun would be 

 opposite the orange sun, and there would 

 be no night, but simple alternation of blue 

 day and orange day, as at first. PROCTOK 

 Expanse of Heaven, p. 229. (L. G. & Co., 

 1897.) 



3776. WORLD THE PRODUCT OF 

 WARRING SYSTEMS Doctrines of Gnostics 

 and Manichceans. Some Gnostics went so 

 far as to hold that the world was originally 

 created by the devil, and is to be gradually 

 purified and redeemed by the beneficent 

 power of God as manifested through Jesus 

 Christ. This notion is just the opposite to 

 that of the Vendidad, which represents the 

 world as coming into existence pure and 

 perfect, only to be forthwith defiled by the 

 trail of the serpent Ahriman. In both these 

 opposing theories the divine power is dis- 

 tinctly and avowedly curtailed by the intro- 

 duction of a rival power that is diabolical ; 

 upon this point Parsee and Gnostic are 

 agreed. Distinct sources are postulated for 

 the evil and the good. The one may be re- 

 garded as infinite in goodness, the other as 

 infinite in badness, and the world in which 

 we live is [held to be] a product of the 

 everlasting conflict between the two. FISKE 

 Through Nature to God, pt. i, ch. 3, p. 14. 

 (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



3777. WORLD, UNSEEN, OF FUN- 

 DAMENTAL IMPORTANCE The Consum- 

 mation of Evolution There. So far as our 

 knowledge of Nature goes, the whole mo- 

 mentum of it carries us onward to the con- 

 clusion that the unseen world, as the ob- 

 jective term in a relation of fundamental 

 importance that has coexisted with the 

 whole career of mankind, has a real exist- 

 ence; and it is but following out the anal- 

 ogy to regard that unseen world as the 

 theater where the ethical process is destined 

 to reach its full consummation. FISKE 

 Through Nature to God, pt. iii, ch. 10, p. 

 190. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



