104 Geclogy as a means of culture — A. Winchell. 
Let us for a moment stand on a higher plane of observation, 
and rise to a higher generalization. There are other planets 
within the range of our vision which exist under the same forms 
and motions and accompaniments as this planet. They are reg- 
ulated by the same system of laws; they consist of the same 
matter; they undergo the same visible vicissitudes. Here is a 
body of data of observation — not indeed, with unaided vision, 
as when we noted the aspects and conditions of the vitrified and 
crystalline rocks — but with the aid of the telescope, the spectro- 
scope, the polariscope and the crucible. From these data we 
formulate the inference that all the planets revealed through 
our instruments are bound together in one system, have had a 
common history and are moving to a common destination. 
This larger generalization produces in our minds a conscious 
expansion — a larger apprehension of the scope and unity of the 
cosmic plan. This higher attainment of thought is attended by 
a grateful emotion, a spiritual delight; and if we are philosopher 
enough to contemplate plan as the correlative and expression 
of mind, we feel here, in the presence of this grand disclosure, 
a higher certitude of Supreme Mind, and a deeper seated and 
more enduring sentiment of devotion. 
At the level of this loftier generalization, we conceive the 
matter and the forms of all the planets merged in one. Per- 
haps the common mass is in the state of firemist, and luminous. 
Perhaps it is a heterogeneous assemblage of mineral particles 
and masses undergoing condensation, and destined in a later 
lEon, to evolve the heat which will develope luminosity and re- 
duce portions to a state of firemist. As before, I care not to 
define precisely the actual state of the matter of the solar system 
which was primordial. We seek only a rational commence- 
ment — a condition such as involved all later conditions. There 
must have been a time — so we reason — when the evolution of 
heat began to be surpassed bv loss of heat. From that epoch 
cooling and contraction began. Rotation is a primordial, neces- 
sary condition of all separate masses of cosmic matter. In a 
rotating, cooling and contracting spheroid, the changes of form 
and condition resulting are the subjects of calculation. Even if 
there be alternative lines of vicissitudes, one of these leads on 
through processes of annulation and spheration — with possible 
