SPHERAL EVOLUTION. 555 
the solar state. Nebulous masses are visible whose variety of conditions is yet 
greater than that shown by suns. From a stage in which they are little short of 
solar condensation* they can be traced through greater and greater degrees of 
rarefaction until they become dim and shapeless whiffs of light-yielding matter, 
that seem but just blown together out of the homogeneous gas of space. 
This represents what we can see. The telescope unfolds an extraordinary 
range of stellar evolution, from the just visible and utterly shapeless nebula, to 
the sun which has almost cooled into darkness. That we see all that exists it 
would be idle and probably false to affirm. We have one or two indications of 
the existence of dark suns, and it is quite possible that thousands of such exist, 
many of which may have grown non-luminous untold millions of years ago. At 
the other end of the series it is all but certain that nebulae exisi too faint to be 
resolved by our telescopes. Millions of others may exist which are in a far less 
evolved condition than those we see. We can behold in space the line of stellar 
evolution, yet existant in examples of nearly its every stage, from the faint neb- 
ula to the darkening sun. The scope of logical deduction carries our vision still 
further, and adds to the extent of this line at both its ends. Such is the existant 
condition of the material universe, as revealed to us in the depths of space. Must 
conclusion arise from this condition ? This is the problem which we have now 
to consider. 
If the universe was created at some definite period, with its existing laws of 
material evolution, it must have begun its existence either as homogeneously dif- 
fused matter, or as matter partly diffused and partly aggregated into masses. If 
it is to be finite in duration, and end at length in irreversible stagnation, the 
latter method of creation must be the true one. Unless there is some reversing 
agency at work it is impossible to understand the extraordinary diversity of con- 
ditions of aggregation in the stellar universe, except on the hypothesis of a crea- 
tion in these diverse conditions. 
It is true that there is a great difference in the rapidity of condensation of 
stellar masses, in accordance with their difference in size. If we compare the 
Moon, the Earth, Jupiter, and the Sun, we have four spheres, whose evolution 
began simultaneously, which are now widely different in degree of condensation. 
It is quite possible that a great number of spheres, which began to condense sim- 
ultaneously, might, after many millions of years, present a great diversity of con- 
ditions, if they were greatly diverse in original size. But this idea will not ex- 
plain the diversity of the stellar masses, in which there is no reason to believe 
that degree of condensation is accordant with difference in bulk, or that the fainter 
nebulae could have begun their evolution simultaneously with the larger and cooler 
suns. The indications, indeed, point strongly towards a successive beginning of 
condensation in many of the visible masses. This is strengthened by the fact 
that the nebulse are not scattered indiscriminately among the suns, but are 
mainly grouped in a region of space by themselves, ss if a secondary and much 
later creation had taken place in this region. 
We seem thus forced toward the alternative of a heterogeneous creation. 
