Non Fiction

The Story of Evolution

Joseph McCabe

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CHAPTER III.  THE BIRTH AND DEATH OF WORLDS

The greater part of this volume will be occupied with the things
that have happened on one small globe in the universe during a
certain number of millions of years. It cannot be denied that
this has a somewhat narrow and parochial aspect. The earth is,
you remember, a million times smaller than the sun, and the sun
itself is a very modest citizen of the stellar universe. Our
procedure is justified, however, both on the ground of personal
interest, and because our knowledge of the earth's story is so
much more ample and confident. Yet we must preface the story of
the earth with at least a general outline of the larger story of
the universe. No sensible man is humbled or dismayed by the
vastness of the universe. When the human mind reflects on its
wonderful scientific mastery of this illimitable ocean of being,
it has no sentiment of being dwarfed or degraded. It looks out
with cold curiosity over the mighty scattering of worlds, and
asks how they, including our own world, came into being.

We now approach this subject with a clearer perception of the
work we have to do. The universe is a vast expanse of ether, and
somehow or other this ether gives rise to atoms of matter. We may
imagine it as a spacious chamber filled with cosmic dust;
recollecting that the chamber has no walls, and that the dust
arises in the ether itself. The problem we now approach is, in a
word: How are these enormous stretches of cosmic dust, which we
call matter, swept together and compressed into suns and planets?
The most famous answer to this question is the "nebular
hypothesis." Let us see, briefly, how it came into modern
science.

We saw that some of the ancient Greek speculators imagined their
infinite number of atoms as scattered originally, like dust,
throughout space and gradually coming together, as dust does, to
form worlds. The way in which they brought their atoms together
was wrong, but the genius of Democritus had provided the germ of
another sound theory to the students of a more enlightened age.
Descartes (1596-1650) recalled the idea, and set out a theory of
the evolution of stars and planets from a diffused chaos of
particles. He even ventured to say that the earth was at one time
a small white-hot sun, and that a solid crust had gradually
formed round its molten core. Descartes had taken refuge in
Sweden from his persecutors, and it is therefore not surprising
that that strange genius Swedenborg shortly afterwards developed
the same idea. In the middle of the eighteenth century the great
French naturalist, Buffon, followed and improved upon Descartes
and Swedenborg. From Buffon's work it was learned by the German
philosopher Kant, who published (1755) a fresh theory of the
concentration of scattered particles into fiery worlds. Then
Laplace (1749-1827) took up the speculation, and gave it the form
in which it practically ruled astronomy throughout the nineteenth
century. That is the genealogy of the famous nebular hypothesis.
It did not spring full-formed from the brain of either Kant or
Laplace, like Athene from the brain of Zeus.

Laplace had one great advantage over the early speculators. Not
only was he an able astronomer and mathematician, but by his time
it was known that nebulae, or vast clouds of dispersed matter,
actually existed in the heavens. Here was a solid basis for the
speculation. Sir William Herschel, the most assiduous explorer of
the heavens, was a contemporary of Laplace. Laplace therefore
took the nebula as his starting-point.

A quarter of an ounce of solid matter (say, tobacco) will fill a
vast space when it is turned into smoke, and if it were not for
the pressure of the atmosphere it would expand still more.
Laplace imagined the billions of tons of matter which constitute
our solar system similarly dispersed, converted into a fine gas,
immeasurably thinner than the atmosphere. This nebula would be
gradually drawn in again by gravitation, just as the dust falls
to the floor of a room. The collisions of its particles as they
fell toward the centre would raise its temperature and give it a
rotating movement. A time would come when the centrifugal force
at the outer ring of the rotating disk would equal the
centripetal (or inward) pull of gravity, and this ring would be
detached, still spinning round the central body. The material of
the ring would slowly gather, by gravitation, round some denser
area in it; the ring would become a sphere; we should have the
first, and outermost, planet circling round the sun. Other rings
would successively be detached, and form the rest of the planets;
and the sun is the shrunken and condensed body of the nebula.

So simple and beautiful a theory of the solar system could not
fail to captivate astronomers, but it is generally rejected
to-day, in the precise form which Laplace gave it. What the
difficulties are which it has encountered, and the modifications
it must suffer, we shall see later; as well as the new theories
which have largely displaced it. It will be better first to
survey the universe from the evolutionary point of view. But I
may observe, in passing, that the sceptical remarks one hears at
times about scientific theories contradicting and superseding
each other are frivolous. One great idea pervades all the
theories of the evolution of worlds, and that idea is firmly
established. The stars and their planets are enormous
aggregations of cosmic dust, swept together and compressed by the
action of gravitation. The precise nature of this cosmic dust--
whether it was gas, meteorites and gas, or other particles-- is
open to question.

As we saw in the first chapter, the universe has the word
evolution written, literally, in letters of fire across it. The
stars are of all ages, from sturdy youth to decrepit age, and
even to the darkness of death. We saw that this can be detected
on the superficial test of colour. The colours of the stars are,
it is true, an unsafe ground to build upon. The astronomer still
puzzles over the gorgeous colours he finds at times, especially
in double stars: the topaz and azure companions in beta Cygni,
the emerald and red of alpha Herculis, the yellow and rose of eta
Cassiopeiae, and so on. It is at the present time under
discussion in astronomy how far these colours are objective at
all, or whether, if they are real, they may not be due to causes
other than temperature. Yet the significance of the three
predominating colours--blue-white, yellow, and red--has been
sustained by the spectroscope. It is the series of colours
through which a white-hot bar of iron passes as it cools. And the
spectroscope gives us good ground to conclude that the stars are
cooling.

When a glowing gas (not under great pressure) is examined by the
spectroscope, it yields a few vertical lines or bars of light on
a dark background; when a glowing liquid or solid is examined, it
gives a continuous rainbow-like stretch of colour. Some of the
nebulae give the former type of spectrum, and are thus known to
be masses of luminous gas; many of the nebulae and the stars have
the latter type of spectrum. But the stretch of light in the
spectrum of a star is crossed, vertically, by a number of dark
lines, and experiment in the laboratory has taught us how to
interpret these. They mean that there is some light-absorbing
vapour between the source of light and the instrument. In the
case of the stars they indicate the presence of an atmosphere of
relatively cool vapours, and an increase in the density of that
atmosphere--which is shown by a multiplication and broadening of
the dark lines on the spectrum--means an increase of age, a loss
of vitality, and ultimately death. So we get the descending scale
of spectra. The dark lines are thinnest and least numerous in the
blue stars, more numerous in the yellow, heavy and thick in the
red. As the body of the star sinks in temperature dense masses of
cool vapour gather about it. Its light, as we perceive it, turns
yellow, then red. The next step, which the spectroscope cannot
follow, will be the formation of a scum on the cooling surface,
ending, after ages of struggle, in the imprisonment of the molten
interior under a solid, dark crust. Let us see how our sun
illustrates this theory.

It is in the yellow, or what we may call the autumnal, stage.
Miss Clerke and a few others have questioned this, but the
evidence is too strong to-day. The vast globe, 867,000 miles in
diameter, seems to be a mass of much the same material as the
earth--about forty elements have been identified in it--but at a
terrific temperature. The light-giving surface is found, on the
most recent calculations, to have a temperature of about 6700
degrees C. This surface is an ocean of liquid or vaporised
metals, several thousand miles in depth; some think that the
brilliant light comes chiefly from clouds of incandescent carbon.
Overlying it is a deep layer of the vapours of the molten metals,
with a temperature of about 5500 degrees C.; and to this
comparatively cool and light-absorbing layer we owe the black
lines of the solar spectrum. Above it is an ocean of red-hot
hydrogen, and outside this again is an atmosphere stretching for
some hundreds of thousands of miles into space.

The significant feature, from our point of view, is the
"sun-spot"; though the spot may be an area of millions of square
miles. These areas are, of course, dark only by comparison with
the intense light of the rest of the disk. The darkest part of
them is 5000 times brighter than the full moon. It will be seen
further, on examining a photograph of the sun, that a network or
veining of this dark material overspreads the entire surface at
all times. There is still some difference of opinion as to the
nature of these areas, but the evidence of the spectroscope has
convinced most astronomers that they are masses of cooler vapour
lying upon, and sinking into, the ocean of liquid fire. Round
their edges, as if responding to the pressure of the more
condensed mass, gigantic spurts and mountains of the white-hot
matter of the sun rush upwards at a rate of fifty or a hundred
miles a second, Sometimes they reach a height of a hundred, and
even two hundred, thousand miles, driving the red-hot hydrogen
before them in prodigious and fantastic flames. Between the black
veins over the disk, also, there rise domes and columns of the
liquid fire, some hundreds of miles in diameter, spreading and
sinking at from five to twenty miles a second. The surface of the
sun--how much more the interior !--is an appalling cauldron of
incandescent matter from pole to pole. Every yard of the surface
is a hundred times as intense as the open furnace of a Titanic.
From the depths and from the surface of this fiery ocean, as, on
a small scale, from the surface of the tropical sea, the vapours
rise high into the extensive atmosphere, discharge some of their
heat into space, and sink back, cooler and heavier, upon the
disk.

This is a star in its yellow age, as are Capella and Arcturus and
other stars. The red stars carry the story further, as we should
expect. The heavier lines in their spectrum indicate more
absorption of light, and tell us that the vapours are thickening
about the globe; while compounds like titanium oxide make their
appearance, announcing a fall of temperature. Below these, again,
is a group of dark red or "carbon" stars, in which the process is
carried further. Thick, broad, dark lines in the red end of the
spectrum announce the appearance of compounds of carbon, and a
still lower fall of temperature. The veil is growing thicker; the
life is ebbing from the great frame. Then the star sinks below
the range of visibility, and one would think that we can follow
the dying world no farther. Fortunately, in the case of Algol and
some thirty or forty other stars, an extinct sun betrays its
existence by flitting across the light of a luminous sun, and
recent research has made it probable that the universe is strewn
with dead worlds. Some of them may be still in the condition
which we seem to find in Jupiter, hiding sullen fires under a
dense shell of cloud; some may already be covered with a crust,
like the earth. There are even stars in which one is tempted to
see an intermediate stage: stars which blaze out periodically
from dimness, as if the Cyclops were spending his last energy in
spasms that burst the forming roof of his prison. But these
variable stars are still obscure, and we do not need their aid.
The downward course of a star is fairly plain.

When we turn to the earlier chapters in the life of a star, the
story is less clear. It is at least generally agreed that the
blue-white stars exhibit an earlier and hotter stage. They show
comparatively little absorption, and there is an immense
preponderance of the lighter gases, hydrogen and helium. They
(Sirius, Vega, etc.) are, in fact, known as "hydrogen stars," and
their temperature is generally computed at between 20,000 and
30,000 degrees C. A few stars, such as Procyon and Canopus, seem
to indicate a stage between them and the yellow or solar type.
But we may avoid finer shades of opinion and disputed classes,
and be content with these clear stages. We begin with stars in
which only hydrogen and helium, the lightest Of elements, can be
traced; and the hydrogen is in an unfamiliar form, implying
terrific temperature. In the next stage we find the lines of
oxygen, nitrogen, magnesium, and silicon. Metals such as iron and
copper come later, at first in a primitive and unusual form.
Lastly we get the compounds of titanium and carbon, and the
densely shaded spectra which tell of the thickly gathering
vapours. The intense cold of space is slowly prevailing in the
great struggle.

What came before the star? It is now beyond reasonable doubt that
the nebula--taking the word, for the moment, in the general sense
of a loose, chaotic mass of material--was the first stage.
Professor Keeler calculated that there are at least 120,000
nebulae within range of our telescopes, and the number is likely
to be increased. A German astronomer recently counted 1528 on one
photographic plate. Many of them, moreover, are so vast that they
must contain the material for making a great number of worlds.
Examine a good photograph of the nebula in Orion. Recollect that
each one of the points of light that are dotted over the expanse
is a star of a million miles or more in diameter (taking our sun
as below the average), and that the great cloud that sprawls
across space is at least 10,000 billion miles away; how much more
no man knows. It is futile to attempt to calculate the extent of
that vast stretch of luminous gas. We can safely say that it is
at least a million times as large as the whole area of our solar
system; but it may run to trillions or quadrillions of miles.

Nearly a hundred other nebulae are known, by the spectroscope, to
be clouds of luminous gas. It does not follow that they are
white-hot, and that the nebula is correctly called a "fire-mist."
Electrical and other agencies may make gases luminous, and many
astronomers think that the nebulae are intensely cold. However,
the majority of the nebulae that have been examined are not
gaseous, and have a very different structure from the loose and
diffused clouds of gas. They show two (possibly more, but
generally two) great spiral arms starting from the central part
and winding out into space. As they are flat or disk-shaped, we
see this structure plainly when they turn full face toward the
earth, as does the magnificent nebula in Canes Venatici. In it,
and many others, we clearly trace a condensed central mass, with
two great arms, each apparently having smaller centres of
condensation, sprawling outward like the broken spring of a
watch. The same structure can be traced in the mighty nebula in
Andromeda, which is visible to the naked eye, and it is said that
more than half the nebulae in the heavens are spiral. Knowing
that they are masses of solid or liquid fire, we are tempted to
see in them gigantic Catherine-wheels, the fireworks of the gods.
What is their relation to the stars?

In the first place, their mere existence has provided a solid
basis for the nebular hypothesis, and their spiral form
irresistibly suggests that they are whirling round on their
central axis and concentrating. Further, we find in some of the
gaseous nebulae (Orion) comparatively void spaces occupied by
stars, which seem to have absorbed the nebulous matter in their
formation. On the other hand, we find (in the Pleiades) wisps and
streamers of nebulous matter clinging about great clusters of
stars, suggesting that they are material left over when these
clustered worlds crystallised out of some vast nebula; and
enormous stretches of nebulous material covering regions (as in
Perseus) where the stars are as thick as grains of silver. More
important still, we find a type of cosmic body which seems
intermediate between the star and the nebula. It is a more or
less imperfectly condensed star, surrounded by nebular masses.
But one of the most instructive links of all is that at times a
nebula is formed from a star, and a recent case of this character
may be briefly described.

In February, 1901, a new star appeared in the constellation
Perseus. Knowing what a star is, the reader will have some dim
conception of the portentous blaze that lit up that remote region
of space (at least 600 billion miles away) when he learns that
the light of this star increased 4000-fold in twenty-eight hours.
It reached a brilliance 8000 times greater than that of the sun.
Telescopes and spectroscopes were turned on it from all parts of
the earth, and the spectroscope showed that masses of glowing
hydrogen were rushing out from it at a rate of nearly a thousand
miles a second. Its light gradually flickered and fell, however,
and the star sank back into insignificance. But the photographic
plate now revealed a new and most instructive feature. Before the
end of the year there was a nebula, of enormous extent, spreading
out on both sides from the centre of the eruption. It was
suggested at the time that the bursting of a star may merely have
lit up a previously dark nebula, but the spectroscope does not
support this. A dim star had dissolved, wholly or partially, into
a nebula, as a result of some mighty cataclysm. What the nature
of the catastrophe was we will inquire presently.

These are a few of the actual connections that we find between
stars and nebulae. Probably, however, the consideration that
weighs most with the astronomer is that the condensation of such
a loose, far-stretched expanse of matter affords an admirable
explanation of the enormous heat of the stars. Until recently
there was no other conceivable source that would supply the sun's
tremendous outpour of energy for tens of millions of years except
the compression of its substance. It is true that the discovery
of radio-activity has disclosed a new source of energy within the
atoms themselves, and there are scientific men, like Professor
Arrhenius, who attach great importance to this source. But,
although it may prolong the limited term of life which physicists
formerly allotted to the sun and other stars, it is still felt
that the condensation of a nebula offers the best explanation of
the origin of a sun, and we have ample evidence for the
connection. We must, therefore, see what the nebula is, and how
it develops.

"Nebula" is merely the Latin word for cloud. Whatever the nature
of these diffused stretches of matter may be, then, the name
applies fitly to them, and any theory of the development of a
star from them is still a "nebular hypothesis." But the three
theories which divide astronomers to-day differ as to the nature
of the nebula. The older theory, pointing to the gaseous nebulae
as the first stage, holds that the nebula is a cloud of extremely
attenuated gas. The meteoritic hypothesis (Sir N. Lockyer, Sir G.
Darwin, etc.), observing that space seems to swarm with meteors
and that the greater part of the nebulae are not gaseous,
believes that the starting-point is a colossal swarm of meteors,
surrounded by the gases evolved and lit up by their collisions.
The planetesimal hypothesis, advanced in recent years by
Professor Moulton and Professor Chamberlin, contends that the
nebula is a vast cloud of liquid or solid (but not gaseous)
particles. This theory is based mainly on the dynamical
difficulties of the other two, which we will notice presently.

The truth often lies between conflicting theories, or they may
apply to different cases. It is not improbable that this will be
our experience in regard to the nature of the initial nebula. The
gaseous nebulae, and the formation of such nebulae from disrupted
stars, are facts that cannot be ignored. The nebulae with a
continuous spectrum, and therefore--in part, at least--in a
liquid or solid condition, may very well be regarded as a more
advanced stage of condensation of the same; their spiral shape
and conspicuous nuclei are consistent with this. Moreover, a
condensing swarm of meteors would, owing to the heat evolved,
tend to pass into a gaseous condition. On the tether hand, a huge
expanse of gas stretched over billions of miles of space would be
a net for the wandering particles, meteors, and comets that roam
through space. If it be true, as is calculated, that our 24,000
miles of atmosphere capture a hundred million meteors a day, what
would the millions or billions of times larger net of a nebula
catch, even if the gas is so much thinner? In other words, it is
not wise to draw too fine a line between a gaseous nebula and one
consisting of solid particles with gas.

The more important question is: How do astronomers conceive the
condensation of this mixed mass of cosmic dust? It is easy to
reply that gravitation, or the pressure of the surrounding ether,
slowly drives the particles centre-ward, and compresses the dust
into globes, as the boy squeezes the flocculent snow into balls;
and it is not difficult for the mathematician to show that this
condensation would account for the shape and temperature of the
stars. But we must go a little beyond this superficial statement,
and see, to some extent, how the deeper students work out the
process.*

* See, especially, Dr. P. Lowell, "The Evolution of Worlds"
(1909). Professor S. Arrhenius, "Worlds in the Making" (1908),
Sir N. Lockyer, "The Meteorite Hypothesis" (1890), Sir R. Ball,
"The Earth's Beginning" (1909), Professor Moulton, "The
Astrophysical Journal (October, 1905), and Chamberlin and
Salisbury, "Geology," Vol. II. (1903).


Taking a broad view of the whole field, one may say that the two
chief difficulties are as follows: First, how to get the whole
chaotic mass whirling round in one common direction; secondly,
how to account for the fact that in our solar system the
outermost planets and satellites do not rotate in the same
direction as the rest. There is a widespread idea that these
difficulties have proved fatal to the old nebular hypothesis, and
there are distinguished astronomers who think so. But Sir R. Ball
(see note), Professor Lowell (see note), Professor Pickering
(Annals of Harvard College Observatory, 53, III), and other high
authorities deny this, and work out the newly discovered
movements on the lines of the old theory. They hold that all the
bodies in the solar system once turned in the same direction as
Uranus and Neptune, and the tidal influence of the sun has
changed the rotation of most of them. The planets farthest from
the sun would naturally not be so much affected by it. The same
principle would explain the retrograde movement of the outer
satellites of Saturn and Jupiter. Sir R. Ball further works out
the principles on which the particles of the condensing nebula
would tend to form a disk rotating on its central axis. The
ring-theory of Laplace is practically abandoned. The spiral
nebula is evidently the standard type, and the condensing nebula
must conform to it. In this we are greatly helped by the current
theory of the origin of spiral nebulae.

We saw previously that new stars sometimes appear in the sky, and
the recent closer scrutiny of the heavens shows this occurrence
to be fairly frequent. It is still held by a few astronomers that
such a cataclysm means that two stars collided. Even a partial or
"grazing " collision between two masses, each weighing billions
of tons, travelling (on the average) forty or fifty miles a
second--a movement that would increase enormously as they
approach each other--would certainly liquefy or vaporise their
substance; but the astronomer, accustomed to see cosmic bodies
escape each other by increasing their speed, is generally
disinclined to believe in collisions. Some have made the new star
plunge into the heart of a dense and dark nebula; some have
imagined a shock of two gigantic swarms of meteors; some have
regarded the outflame as the effect of a prodigious explosion. In
one or other new star each or any of these things may have
occurred, but the most plausible and accepted theory for the new
star of 1901 and some others is that two stars had approached
each other too closely in their wandering. Suppose that, in
millions of years to come, when our sun is extinct and a firm
crust surrounds the great molten ball, some other sun approaches
within a few million miles of it. The two would rush past each
other at a terrific speed, but the gravitational effect of the
approaching star would tear open the solid shell of the sun, and,
in a mighty flame, its molten and gaseous entrails would be flung
out into space. It has long been one of the arguments against a
molten interior of the earth that the sun's gravitational
influence would raise it in gigantic tides and rend the solid
shell of rock. It is even suspected now that our small earth is
not without a tidal influence on the sun. The comparatively near
approach of two suns would lead to a terrific cataclysm.

If we accept this theory, the origin of the spiral nebula becomes
intelligible. As the sun from which it is formed is already
rotating on its axis, we get a rotation of the nebula from the
first. The mass poured out from the body of the sun would, even
if it were only a small fraction of its mass, suffice to make a
planetary system; all our sun's planets and their satellites
taken together amount to only 1/100th of the mass of the solar
system. We may assume, further, that the outpoured matter would
be a mixed cloud of gases and solid and liquid particles; and
that it would stream out, possibly in successive waves, from more
than one part of the disrupted sun, tending to form great spiral
trails round the parent mass. Some astronomers even suggest that,
as there are tidal waves raised by the moon at opposite points of
the earth, similar tidal outbursts would occur at opposite points
on the disk of the disrupted star, and thus give rise to the
characteristic arms starting from opposite sides of the spiral
nebula. This is not at all clear, as the two tidal waves of the
earth are due to the fact that it has a liquid ocean rolling on,
not under, a solid bed.

In any case, we have here a good suggestion of the origin of the
spiral nebula and of its further development. As soon as the
outbursts are over, and the scattered particles have reached the
farthest limit to which they are hurled, the concentrating action
of gravitation will slowly assert itself. If we conceive this
gravitational influence as the pressure of the surrounding ether
we get a wider understanding of the process. Much of the
dispersed matter may have been shot far enough into space to
escape the gravitational pull of the parent mass, and will be
added to the sum of scattered cosmic dust, meteors, and close
shoals of meteors (comets) wandering in space. Much of the rest
will fall back upon the central body But in the great spiral arms
themselves the distribution of the matter will be irregular, and
the denser areas will slowly gather in the surrounding material.
In the end we would thus get secondary spheres circling round a
large primary.

This is the way in which astronomers now generally conceive the
destruction and re-formation of worlds. On one point the new
planetesimal theory differs from the other theories. It supposes
that, since the particles of the whirling nebula are all
travelling in the same general direction, they overtake each
other with less violent impact than the other theories suppose,
and therefore the condensation of the material into planets would
not give rise to the terrific heat which is generally assumed. We
will consider this in the next chapter, when we deal with the
formation of the planets. As far as the central body, the sun, is
concerned, there can be no hesitation. The 500,000,000
incandescent suns in the heavens are eloquent proof of the
appalling heat that is engendered by the collisions of the
concentrating particles.

In general outline we now follow the story of a star with some
confidence. An internal explosion, a fatal rush into some dense
nebula or swarm of meteors, a collision with another star, or an
approach within a few million miles of another star, scatters, in
part or whole, the solid or liquid globe in a cloud of cosmic
dust. When the violent outrush is over, the dust is gathered
together once more into a star. At first cold and attenuated, its
temperature rises as the particles come together, and we have,
after a time, an incandescent nucleus shining through a thin veil
of gas--a nebulous star. The temperature rises still further, and
we have the blue-hot star, in which the elements seem to be
dissociated, and slowly re-forming as the temperature falls.
After, perhaps, hundreds of millions of years it reaches the
"yellow" stage, and, if it has planets with the conditions of
life, there may be a temporary opportunity for living things to
enjoy its tempered energy. But the cooler vapours are gathering
round it, and at length its luminous body is wholly imprisoned.
It continues its terrific course through space, until some day,
perhaps, it again encounters the mighty cataclysm which will make
it begin afresh the long and stormy chapters of its living
history.

Such is the suggestion of the modern astronomer, and, although we
seem to find every phase of the theory embodied in the varied
contents of the heavens, we must not forget that it is only a
suggestion. The spectroscope and telescopic photography, which
are far more important than the visual telescope, are
comparatively recent, and the field to be explored is enormous.
The mist is lifting from the cosmic landscape, but there is still
enough to blur our vision. Very puzzling questions remain
unanswered. What is the origin of the great gaseous nebulae? What
is the origin of the triple or quadruple star? What is the
meaning of stars whose light ebbs and flows in periods of from a
few to several hundred days? We may even point to the fact that
some, at least, of the spiral nebulae are far too vast to be the
outcome of the impact or approach of two stars.

We may be content to think that we have found out some truths, by
no means the whole truth, about the evolution of worlds.
Throughout this immeasurable ocean of ether the particles of
matter are driven together and form bodies. These bodies swarm
throughout space, like fish in the sea; travelling singly (the
"shooting star"), or in great close shoals (the nucleus of a
comet), or lying scattered in vast clouds. But the inexorable
pressure urges them still, until billions of tons of material are
gathered together. Then, either from the sheer heat of the
compression, or from the formation of large and unstable atomic
systems (radium, etc.), or both, the great mass becomes a
cauldron of fire, mantled in its own vapours, and the story of a
star is run. It dies out in one part of space to begin afresh in
another. We see nothing in the nature of a beginning or an end
for the totality of worlds, the universe. The life of all living
things on the earth, from the formation of the primitive microbes
to the last struggles of the superman, is a small episode of that
stupendous drama, a fraction of a single scene. But our ampler
knowledge of it, and our personal interest in it, magnify that
episode, and we turn from the cosmic picture to study the
formation of the earth and the rise of its living population.
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The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan
W.S. Gilbert

Category: Plays
Sections: 50   What's this?
Table of Contents


Fiction
Short Stories
Poetry
Plays
Sci Fi
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Religion
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