Chapter I: Preface

Of the sixteen chapters constituting this little work, thirteen have been published as a series, begun in _Knowledge_ and continued in _Knowledge and Illustrated Scientific News_, and to the proprietors of those journals, for their courteous permission to reprint them, I offer my sincere thanks. Three additional chapters, equivalent to, though not identical with, those that now appear, formed an integral part of the original plan of the book, now presented to the public in the hope that it will enable general readers to follow, with the profound interest it should inspire, the course of modern inquiries regarding the origin of the world. Their advance is by no means smooth or facile. Many difficulties and perplexities are encountered in the attempt to get back towards the beginning of things. Some of the old tracks, too, have been torn up by the pioneers of twentieth century science, and the process of constructing new ones, which shall lead further into the unknown fore-time, is slow and laborious. But the rail-head in the desert is a peculiarly suggestive place of pilgrimage, and several such outlying posts and temporary halting-places are more or less vaguely localized in the following pages.

London, _November, 16, 1905_.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. FROM THALES TO KANT 1

II. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS 21

III. CRITICISMS OF THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS 39

IV. THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS VARIED AND IMPROVED 60

V. TIDAL FRICTION AS AN AGENT IN COSMOGONY 83

VI. THE FISSION OF ROTATING GLOBES 100

VII. WORLD-BUILDING OUT OF METEORITES 118

VIII. COSMOGONY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 135

IX. PROTYLE: WHAT IS IT? 150

X. UNIVERSAL FORCES 166

XI. THE INEVITABLE ETHER 183

XII. THE FORMS OF NEBULÆ 199

XIII. THE PROCESSION OF SUNS 216

XIV. OUR OWN SYSTEM 232

XV. REMNANTS AND SURVIVALS 250

XVI. LIFE AS THE OUTCOME 265

INDEX 283

MODERN COSMOGONIES