MODERN EVOLUTION. 



177 



body from which they were cast off; sun, planets, 

 and moons (those of Uranus excepted) moving in a 

 common direction, and almost in the same plane. 

 The probability that these harmonious movements 

 are the effects of like causes he calculated as 200,000 

 billions to one. 



The observations of the famous astronomer. Sir 

 William Herschel, which resulted in the discovery of 

 binary or double stars, of star-clusters, and cloud-like 

 nebulas (as that term implies) were further confirma- 

 tions of Kant's theory. And such modifications in 

 this as have been made by subsequent advance in 

 knowledge, notably by the doctrine of the Conserva- 

 tion of Energy (the hypothesis of Kant and Laplace 

 being based on gravitation alone), affect not the 

 general theory of the origin of the heavenly bodies 

 from seemingly formless, unstable, and highly-dif- 

 fused matter. The assumption of primitive unstable- 

 ness and unlikeness squares with the unequal 

 distribution of matter; with the movements of its 

 masses in different directions, and at different rates; 

 and with the ceaseless redistribution of matter and 

 motion. For all changes of states are due to the 

 rearrangement of the atoms of which matter is made 

 up, resulting in the evolution of the seeming like into 

 the actual unlike; of the simple into the more and 

 more complex, till— speaking of the only planet of 

 whose life-history we can have knowledge — ^with the 

 cooling of the earth to a temperature permitting of 

 the evolution of living matter, the highest complexity 



