I30 SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



orbits, it is useless to speculate how the atoms 

 themselves are built into stars and worlds. Cos- 

 mogony is a function of the ether : its first 

 phenomenon is an electric charge ; its second 

 phenomenon is the conjunction of electric charges 

 in certain orbits to form atoms ; and only its third 

 phenomenon, the impact and conjunction of atoms 

 with the production of these vibrations, we know 

 as heat. Ether has no heat ; electrons have no 

 heat : heat is atomic vibration. 



It is quite possible that meteoric stones might 

 make a star, as watch-wheels might make a watch ; 

 but we want to know how the stones were formed 

 in the first instance. Meteoric stones need ex- 

 planation quite as much as watch-wheels, and it is 

 as necessary to account for the rotation of electrons 

 as for the rotation of planets. 



In fine, our knowledge of nebulae is very nebu- 

 lous, and more in the region of poetry and imagina- 

 tion than in the region of the mathematical sciences ; 

 and if we are to explain the cosmos, we must begin 

 with the ultimate structural energies of matter. 



" We can, however," says Miss Clerke, " gather 

 one sufficiently definite piece of information regard- 

 ing the history of the cosmios. All the inmates of 

 the heavens, stellar and nebular, represent quite 

 evidently the debris of a primitive rotating spheroid. 

 Its equator is still marked by the galactic annulus 



