CONCLUDING CHAPTER

Too Long; Didn't Read

Comprehensiveness of the Nebular Theory—Illustration—Huxley and the Origin of Species—Rudimentary Organs—The Apteryx—Its Evanescent Wings—The Skeleton—An Historical Explanation—Application of the Same Method to the Nebular Theory—The Internal Heat of the Earth—The Lady Psyche. It is not difficult to show that the nebular theory occupies a unique position among other speculations of the human intellect. It is so comprehensive that almost every conceivable topic will bear some relation to it. Perhaps I may venture to give a rather curious illustration of this fact, which was told me many years ago by one who attended a course of lectures by an eminent Professor in the medical faculty at, let us say, Vienna. The subject of the course was the no doubt highly important, but possibly not generally interesting, subject of “inflammation.” I think I am right in saying that the course had to last for six months, because the subject was to be treated with characteristic breadth and profundity. At all events, I distinctly remember that the learned Professor commenced his long series of professional discourses with an account of the nebular theory, and from that starting point he gradually evolved the sequence of events which ultimately culminated in—inflammation!