1885.] 
213 
A New Cosmogony. 
condensation necessary for the production of a faint light. 
We generally require a powerful telescope to recognise these 
nebulae, but then we may perceive them in the heavens by 
thousands, and of several different kinds. 
The nebula in Orion has no sharply defined form ; a more 
luminous region can be distinguished in the mass in which 
the condensation of the chaotic material is most advanced. 
In all other parts the light is faint. We distinguish merely 
long streams of luminous matter the meaning of which it is 
impossible to divine. 
The nebula in Andromeda is one of the most remarkable 
objects in the heavens. It has an almost geometrical form, 
and in its centre it displays a very distinct condensation. 
The nebula in Leo shows nebular rings which appear to 
be in process of formation. 
Lastly, the peculiar double nebulas of Virgo, Aquarius, 
&c., are evidently not far from their final transformation 
into stars. 
It would not be difficult to increase the number of the 
intermediate stages, and, e.g., to point out certain nebular 
stars which are in the penultimate stage of this series of 
transformations, which begins with a faintly luminous, 
shapeless mist, and ends with a sun, or with several suns 
connected in manifold ways. There is no occasion to say 
that we have not been present at these transformations. 
Here we resemble the botanist who in a forest can study the 
trees in their various stages of evolution. Thus the creation 
of the universe is, in a manner, proceeding before our very 
eyes. In the beginning, nebular spots which have separated 
themselves from the universal chaos ; ultimately, glowing 
stars or other orbs so small that we cannot see them, since 
their formation evolved so little heat that their light is 
already extinguished. 
Let us now suppose that from some cause — of which 
hereafter — the spirals of a whirling nebular spot are trans- 
formed into concentric rings governed by a common rotatory 
movement. ObjeCts of such a form really occur in the 
heavens, — e.g., the ring-shaped nebula of Lyra. 
If such heavenly bodies are rare it is because they have 
little stability. It is merely a state of transition. On 
account of the differences in their linear velocity which here 
predominate, and on account of the mutual attraction of 
their parts, this last cause produces vortices, because they 
are compelled to follow the same way with different velo- 
cities, to coalesce, and to lose themselves in a single nebular 
mass in which by degrees all the matter of the rings will be 
