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.”