Fournier D’Albe goes further still. In poetic flight he does not hesitate to endow the Milky Way organism with life. Its evolution cannot be denied a certain similarity to the processes of life. The great nebula owes its origin to the union of two individuals, two nebulosities, who met in their course through boundless space. There floated the newborn extending its tentacles in the cool ether-waves and gained substance and strength through the smaller beings which the surging billows brought within its reach. It has now attained the zenith of its evolution, and is breaking up into molecules, or solar systems, which again are composed of stellar bodies, or atoms within the molecule. In violent exuberance of youth these rush through space in fulfilment of their individual life. Many will in due time undoubtedly become dust again and then serve to nourish a new youthful nebula. Others succumb to a freezing-death but will be restored to life in collision with a nebulosity or some other stellar body and give form to “new stars” or planetary clouds. Again and again shall the starry mists go through the cycle of existence and after a lifetime, whose duration stands in proportion to their dimensions, _i. e._ may be estimated to billions of billions of years, give rise to new celestial beings. Thus shall it for ever continue in an eternal rhythm.
When Aristotle, for two thousand years our leading savant in cosmography, about twenty-three centuries ago stated the foundation of his natural science, he laid down as the important principles: moisture and heat and their opposites; because the four elements out of which everything was made, were: earth, characterized by dryness and cold; water, which was moist and cold; air, which combined moisture with heat; and lastly fire, which stood for dryness and heat. Undoubtedly he was considering the requisites of life, which may be designated as humidity and heat. We have seemingly agreed that all life originates in the sea, so that moisture can be considered the first requirement for its appearance on the earth. As to heat, life is destroyed by frost and favoured by increased warmth, at least to a certain point, about 35° to 40° C. (95° to 104° Fahrenheit), which temperature is most propitious to the development of life, while a further increase is detrimental, so that already below the boiling point of water life suffers more harm than at temperatures below freezing. In fact, the geologists have found that the different epochs in earth’s evolution are best characterized by their humidity or dryness. To arrive at a clear conception in these matters we shall briefly survey our present knowledge of the importance for the evolution of life on earth that we should attach to the humid and to the dry periods or localities.