Is there further evidence of this? There is. On the night of February 21, in the year 1901, a luminous object appeared in the constellation Perseus. From a region where all was darkness the night before, a new and wondrous body now blazed forth its treasures of light. To the astronomers, who with lively curiosity watched the new birth for months, it meant that a tremendous conflagration had taken place in the heavens. A new nebula had been given to the universe, not, however, on the night when its light was first seen, but when Napoleon was dazzling the world with his victories; for the glowing mass was 500 billion miles away, and its messenger light, flying across space with the awful velocity of 186,000 miles a second, had been hurrying ninety-nine years to bring the news to our world!
Science now warrants a further step—one which reveals the origin and nature of matter—the ultimate source of the nebula itself.
Ether fills all space. It penetrates even the most solid substances. The universe of matter swims in an ocean of ether. Only by the presence of ether is the force of gravitation made possible—it must have ether upon which to act. The wings of ether alone transmit to us the light of the sun and stars. Now science is telling us that this indispensable ether, this infinitely attenuated and invisible substance, is the birthplace of matter—that atoms of matter are composed of minute centres of energy, or electrons, in ether. The atom is built of thousands of electrons whirling with inconceivable velocity in the space of their tiny, invisible universe; just as the visible universe is composed of myriads of suns and planets rushing forward through the boundless etherial ocean. Matter, then, whether nebulous or solid, was evolved out of the ether.
GENERAL TABLE OF THE STRATIFIED
SYSTEM AND FORMATIONS, Etc.
Fig. 6.—A Pillar of Stratified Rocks.
This illustration and others in this book are reproduced from Dennis Hird’s excellent work, “A Picture Book of Evolution,” with the kind permission of the publishers, Watts & Co., London.
Millions of ages ago, a collision or an explosion produced a nebula in the region now occupied by our solar system. That nebula spread out over thousands of millions of miles of space. Here and there, in its mighty body, a more solid nucleus drew to itself volumes of the surrounding substance. In this manner the planets arose, leaving the sun, with his giant mass, in the center of the field. As the nebula revolved in one direction, mathematical necessity imparted to all the forming bodies a whirling motion around the central sphere. The smaller bodies cooled rapidly, so to speak, and crusted over; but the sun, owing to his immense bulk, has continued to glow through all these countless ages, and still sends forth enough light and heat to illuminate and warm many billions of worlds like ours. How long a time has elapsed since the earth began to condense from the nebula, the human mind cannot conceive; but Sir G. H. Darwin, the son of Charles Darwin, declares it is not unreasonable to suppose that from five hundred to a thousand million years have passed away since the moon was detached from the earth.
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