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.
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