SOLUTION OF THE WORLD- PROBLEMS. 377 



possible that the original basic " substance " (vide 

 p. 234) is not yet divided into ponderable and impon- 

 derable matter. In other parts of space we find stars 

 that have cooled down into glowing fluid, and yet 

 others that are cold and rigid ; we can tell their stage 

 of evolution approximately by their colour. We find 

 stars that are surrounded with rings and moons like 

 Saturn ; and we recognize in the luminous ring of the 

 nebula the embryo of a new moon, which has detached 

 itself from the mother-planet, just as the planet was 

 released from the sun. 



Many of the stars, the light of which has taken 

 thousands of years to reach us, are certainly suns 

 like our own mother- sun, and are girt about with 

 planets and moons, just as in our own solar system. 

 We are justified in supposing that thousands of these 

 planets are in a similar stage of development to that 

 of our earth — that is, they have arrived at a period 

 when the temperature of the surface lies between the 

 freezing and boiling point of water, and so permits 

 the existence of water in its liquid condition. That 

 makes it possible that carbon has entered into the 

 same complex combinations on those planets as it has 

 done on our earth, and that form its nitrogenous 

 compounds protoplasm has been evolved — that 

 wonderful substance which alone, as far as our 

 knowledge goes, is the possessor of organic life. The 

 monera (for instance, chromacea and bacteria), which 

 consist only of this primitive protoplasm, and which 

 arise by spontaneous generation from these inorganic 

 nitrocarbonates, may thus have entered upon the 

 same course of evolution on many other planets as 

 on our own ; first of all, living cells of the simplest 

 character would be formed from their homogeneous 



