VI.] Chauncey Wright. 99 



from indications in the present structure of the solar 

 system, the general history of the process by which 

 the system arose out of a mass of vaporous or 

 nebulous matter. That process has been a species 

 of evolution in so far as it has substituted a deter- 

 minate and complicated for an indeterminate and 

 simple arrangement ; and in so far as it has resulted 

 in the production of the earth or whatever other 

 planet may be the abode of conscious inteUigence, 

 it has been a kind of progress judged with reference 

 to human ends. But so far from this evolution or 

 progress being set down as a universal or eternal 

 affair, it is most explicitly regarded as local and 

 temporary. Throughout the starry groups analogous 

 changes are supposed to be going on, but at different 

 stages in different systems, just as the various mem- 

 bers of a human society coexist in all stages of 

 youth, maturity, or decline ; while here and there 

 are nebulae in which the first steps of development 

 have not yet become apparent, and circumstances 

 can be pointed out under which one of these masses 

 might now and then fail to produce a system of 

 worlds at all. Not only is there all this scope for 

 irregular variety, but the theory further supposes 

 that in every single instance, but at different times 

 in different systems, the process of evolution will 



H 2 



