SOLUTION OF THE WORLD-PROBLEMS. 381 



side in the universe. While the embryo of a new 

 world is being formed from a nebula in one corner of 

 the vast stage of the universe, another has already 

 condensed into a rotating sphere of liquid fire in some 

 far distant spot ; a third has already cast off rings 

 at its equator, which round themselves into planets ; 

 a fourth has become a vast sun whose planets have 

 formed a secondary retinue of moons, and so on. 

 And between them are floating about in space myriads 

 of smaller bodies, meteorites, or shooting-stars, which 

 cross and re-cross the paths of the planets, apparently 

 like lawless vagabonds, and of which a great number 

 fall on to the planets every day. Thus there is a 

 continuous but slow change in the velocities and the 

 orbits of the revolving spheres. The frozen moons 

 fall on to the planets, the planets on to their suns. 

 Two distant suns, perhaps already stark and cold, 

 rush together with inconceivable force and melt away 

 into nebulous clouds. And such prodigious heat is 

 generated by the collision that the nebula is once 

 more raised to incandescence, and the old drama 

 begins again. Yet in this "perpetual motion" the 

 infinite substance of the universe, the sum-total of 

 its matter and energy, remains eternally unchanged, 

 and we have an eternal repetition in infinite time of 

 the periodic dance of the worlds, the metamorphosis 

 of the cosmos that ever returns to its starting-point. 

 Over all rules the law of substance. 



II. PROGRESS OF GEOLOGY. 



The earth and its origin were much later than the 

 heavens in becoming the object of scientific investiga- 

 tion. The numerous ancient and modern cosmogonies 



