* 
124 Transactions, — Miscellaneous, 
partly behind his dusky parent’s body, and in this way suffers partial 
eclipse, 
But the autobiographies of these bodies must not detain us; we must 
discuss the existence of such gigantic feebly-luminous or non-luminous 
bodies as our hypothesis demands. The existence of variable stars seems 
sufficient to prove there are such bodies, and, as I have shown, all the 
hypotheses offered in explanation of temporary stars assume their existence. 
The high temperature and small relative light of celestial radiation points 
to the same conclusion, or to non-luminous gas. It might be asked, if there 
are dark bodies, why not stellar eclipse. I do not know if such have been 
observed ; it would be wonderful if any had been, for they must be very 
rare, probably as rare as temporary stars; for, although we have all the 
depths of space in which eclipses are possible, on the other hand with 
temporary stars we have attraction bringing very distant bodies together. 
Further, the points of light of the fixed stars form but a small area in space, 
and, lastly, if eclipses occurred they would probably not be recorded, as 
small black patches of cloud so often obscure a portion of the sky that such 
an occurrence would scarcely attract attention. But why should there not 
be large dark bodies? Laplace’s theory of a universal nebule may be 
assumed to be against it; but did Laplace assume that it was contem- 
poraneous ? if not, then even that theory does not interfere. All our con- 
ceptions seem to agree more with a rhythmic cycle than with any definite 
beginning or end. If we assume this hypothesis, then the period of dissipa- 
tion of energy seems indefinitely projected into futurity ; for all radiation 
falling on the matter in space, must prevent its temperature from falling so 
low as without this radiation, and when at a subsequent date a collision 
occurs, this heat must exalt the final temperature. Nor does it appear that 
we need look forward to a gigantic dead sun as the final condition of this 
universe; for doubtless our universe has its own proper motion in space, 
which may bring us into collision with other universes. This shows that 
gravitation may be as competent to multiply worlds as to absorb them one 
into another. But after all our hypothesis only takes us a step back in 
time, and our imaginations a step forward into the future, thus removing 
further than ever from our conceptions every trace of a beginning or pro- 
mise of an end. 
