just, according to which the oceans will gradually be withdrawn beneath the surface crust and even the atmosphere almost wholly disappear, there would for ever remain the signs of changes brought about by rainfall and snowfall, by wind and storm, by river and glacier, by ocean waves and ocean currents, by the presence of vegetable life and of animal life during hundreds of millions of years, and even more potently by the fiery deluge poured continually on the primeval surface of our globe. By all these causes the surface of the earth has been so wrought upon as no longer to resemble the primary igneous rock which we seem to recognize in the scarred surface of our satellite. Dare we look onwards to yet later stages in the history of our earth? Truly it is like looking beyond death; for now imagination presents our earth to us as an inert mass, not only lifeless as at the beginning, but no longer possessing that potentiality of life which existed in her substance before life appeared upon her surface. We trace her circling year after year around the sun, serving no useful purpose according to our conceptions. The energy represented by her motions of rotation and revolution seems to be as completely wasted as are those parts (the whole save only one 230,000,000th portion) of the sun's light and heat, which, falling on no planet, seem to be poured uselessly into desert space. Long as has been, and doubtless will be, the duration of life upon the earth, it seems less than a second of time compared with those two awful time-intervals-one past, when as yet life had not begun, the other still to come, when all life shall have But we are thus led to contemplate time-intervals of a yet higher order to consider the eras belonging to the life-time of the solar system itself. Long after the earth shall have ceased to be the abode of life other and nobler orbs will become in their time fit to support millions of forms as well of animal as of vegetable existence; and the later each planet is in thus "putting on life," the longer will be the duration of the life-supporting era of its own existence. Even those timeintervals will pass, however, until every orb in turn has been the scene of busy life, and has then, each after its due life-season, become inert and dead. One orb alone will then remain, on which life will be possible,-the sun, the source whence life had been sustained in all those worlds. And then, after the lapse, perchance, of a lifeless interval, compared with which all the past eras of the solar system were utterly insignificant, the time will arrive when the sun will be a fit abode for living creatures. Thereafter, during ages infinite to our conceptions, the great central orb will be (as now, though in another sense) the life of the solar system. We may even look onwards to still more distant changes, seeing that the solar system is itself moving on an orbit, though the centre round which it travels is so distant that as yet it remains unknown. We see in imagination change after change, cycle after cycle, till Drawn on paths of never-ending duty, The worlds-eternity begun- On the Heart of the All-Central Sun. just, according to which the oceans will gradually be withdrawn beneath the surface crust and even the atmosphere almost wholly disappear, there would for ever remain the signs of changes brought about by rainfall and snowfall, by wind and storm, by river and glacier, by ocean waves and ocean currents, by the presence of vegetable life and of animal life during hundreds of millions of years, and even more potently by the fiery deluge poured continually on the primeval surface of our globe. By all these causes the surface of the earth has been so wrought upon as no longer to resemble the primary igneous rock which we seem to recognize in the scarred surface of our satellite. Dare we look onwards to yet later stages in the history of our earth? Truly it is like looking beyond death; for now imagination presents our earth to us as an inert mass, not only lifeless as at the beginning, but no longer possessing that potentiality of life which existed in her substance before life appeared upon her surface. We trace her circling year after year around the sun, serving no useful purpose according to our conceptions. The energy represented by her motions of rotation and revolution seems to be as completely wasted as are those parts (the whole save only one 230,000,000th portion) of the sun's light and heat, which, falling on no planet, seem to be poured uselessly into desert space. Long as has been, and doubtless will be, the duration of life upon the earth, it seems less than a second of time compared with those two awful time-intervals-one past, when as yet life had not begun, the other still to come, when all life shall have But we are thus led to contemplate time-intervals of a yet higher order to consider the eras belonging to the life-time of the solar system itself. Long after the earth shall have ceased to be the abode of life other and nobler orbs will become in their time fit to support millions of forms as well of animal as of vegetable existence; and the later each planet is in thus "putting on life," the longer will be the duration of the life-supporting era of its own existence. Even those timeintervals will pass, however, until every orb in turn has been the scene of busy life, and has then, each after its due life-season, become inert and dead. One orb alone will then remain, on which life will be possible,-the sun, the source whence life had been sustained in all those worlds. And then, after the lapse, perchance, of a lifeless interval, compared with which all the past eras of the solar system were utterly insignificant, the time will arrive when the sun will be a fit abode for living creatures. Thereafter, during ages infinite to our conceptions, the great central orb will be (as now, though in another sense) the life of the solar system. We may even look onwards to still more distant changes, seeing that the solar system is itself moving on an orbit, though the centre round which it travels is so distant that as yet it remains unknown. We see in imagination change after change, cycle after cycle, till Drawn on paths of never-ending duty, The worlds-eternity begun- On the Heart of the All-Central Sun. just, according to which the oceans will gradually be withdrawn beneath the surface crust and even the atmosphere almost wholly disappear, there would for ever remain the signs of changes brought about by rainfall and snowfall, by wind and storm, by river and glacier, by ocean waves and ocean currents, by the presence of vegetable life and of animal life during hundreds of millions of years, and even more potently by the fiery deluge poured continually on the primeval surface of our globe. By all these causes the surface of the earth has been so wrought upon as no longer to resemble the primary igneous rock which we seem to recognize in the scarred surface of our satellite. Dare we look onwards to yet later stages in the history of our earth? Truly it is like looking beyond death; for now imagination presents our earth to us as an inert mass, not only lifeless as at the beginning, but no longer possessing that potentiality of life which existed in her substance before life appeared upon her surface. We trace her circling year after year around the sun, serving no useful purpose according to our conceptions. The energy represented by her motions of rotation and revolution seems to be as completely wasted as are those parts (the whole save only one 230,000,000th portion) of the sun's light and heat, which, falling on no planet, seem to be poured uselessly into desert space. Long as has been, and doubtless will be, the duration of life upon the earth, it seems less than a second of time compared with those two awful time-intervals-one past, when as yet life had not begun, the other still to come, when all life shall have |