When Dr. Svante Arrhenius in the year 1903 received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry it came as a fitting reward of his achievements principally in the electro-chemical field. It was natural, however, that a genius of his calibre would not limit his interest to the “infinitely small” but would gradually broaden it to encompass the “infinitely large.” And “to take an interest” means with Dr. Arrhenius to push the boundaries of the unknown and of the unexplored a little farther away from man. His evolution in this respect runs parallel with that of all the great men who stand out as leaders in the history of science. Wrapt up in the solution of a particular problem and fired with the divine yearning to reach ultimate causes they are inevitably driven to ever widening circles of research until this whole material universe, its whence and whither, becomes the overpowering passion of their spirits. Thus the mere titles of the works of Dr. Arrhenius, read in the sequence of their publication, give us, better than any biography, the history of a soul, which, no matter what his unprofessed philosophical faith may be, constitutes our strongest evidence in favour of that theory of “purposiveness” in the universe which Dr. Arrhenius so heartily abhors (and justly so) when resorted to in natural science, but which theory nevertheless (and justly so) is so dear to the philosopher:—Researches in Regard to the Conductivity of Electrolytes; Conductivity of Extremely Diluted Solutions; Chemical Theory of Electrolytes; Textbook in Theoretical Electro-Chemistry; Textbook in Cosmological Physics; Worlds in the Making; Infinity of the Universe; Life of the Universe as Conceived by Man from Earliest Ages to the Present Time;—thus run the titles of a few of the works we already have by Dr. Arrhenius’ hand. How were it possible for him NOT to write The Destinies of the Stars? The volume came as inevitably as fruition follows flowering. What remains to be seen is if Dr. Arrhenius can withstand the tremendous temptation that must be at work in his soul to lift, be it ever so little, the curtain that separates natural science and philosophy; we hope he will give in; we admire in this book how he reads “The Riddle of the Milky Way”; we certainly wish to know how he reads—the riddle of the universe.
The Destinies of the Stars met with unexampled success in Sweden. Three editions appeared within two months when the book was published in November, 1915. The American version has been somewhat delayed principally due to war conditions. This, however, has not been wholly a loss to the English-speaking world as Dr. Arrhenius by no means has been idle in the meantime. Considerable additional subject matter, including three new pictures, has been added, chiefly based on the most recent astronomical discoveries some of which have been recorded as late as 1917.
For valuable suggestions and for all the American equivalents of the metric measures in the original, the reader as well as the translator, is indebted to a member of the Publishing House that presents this volume in such an attractive way, Mr. E. W. Putnam, himself an ardent lover of astronomy and a writer on the subject.
Dr. Arrhenius is justly renowned for his lucid style and polished form. All that is lacking in these qualities within the covers of this volume is wholly due to the deficiencies of the translator, who however could not resist the temptation of transferring to Anglo-Saxon soil this monument to the genius of his former teacher, Dr. Svante Arrhenius.
J. E. Fries.
Birmingham, Ala., December 15, 1917.
PREFACE
Since I presented Worlds in the Making and Life of the Universe as Conceived by Man from Earliest Ages to the Present Time to the public—which received them with far greater interest and appreciation than I could foresee—I have had repeated occasions to treat new questions of a cosmological nature, questions largely arisen from new discoveries and observations within the scope of astronomy. Vast new vistas have been opened through the study of the relation of the stars to the “Milky Way” and through observations of our neighbour planets. The last mentioned give plain indications of the course of planetary evolution and thus enable us to surmise the changing fate and future position of the Earth. In an earlier German publication, Das Schicksal der Planeten (1911), I dealt with some of these problems. As, further, the evolution of the solar system from the Milky Way nebula, to which I have devoted several lectures at home and abroad, may be considered as the pre-history of the evolution of the planets, I have given this collection of cosmogenic articles the common title The Destinies of the Stars. I offer as introduction a lecture delivered before the Fourth International Philosophical Congress in Bologna, 1911, dealing with the “Origin of Star-Worship.”
Hoping that this little book will, to a considerable extent, fill the gaps in my previous works, I present these treatises in remodelled form.