While the nebular theory of Laplace is now the generally accepted scientific hypothesis of the formation of our solar system and of all solar systems, it finds its strongest support in the mode in which it seeks to account for the heat and light of the sun,--that is, that the central orb, gradually condensing down from an original volume as large as the orbit of Neptune, at least, after disengaging the planetary rings, continued to condense to its present volume, and still so continues, the molecular motions arrested by condensation under gravity reappearing in the form of the energy of light and heat, and that this process of degradation will continue until, finally, the sun becomes a solid inert mass, incapable by further condensation of exciting the ethereal undulations in space which constitute heat and light, when the whole process will finally cease, the sun will die out, the planets continue to rotate in darkness, and the whole machinery be left running through an eternal night, like a vast mill in the hands of a negligent watchman (or rather no watchman at all), left to run itself alone, dark, empty, lifeless, and deserted, through the long and silent watches of the night. While the source and mode of solar energy set forth in this work are to be as readily accounted for if we accept as valid Laplace's nebular hypothesis as by any other theory, yet such basis is not essential for its support; for while the planetary rotations and the central sun are the necessary consequence, according to Laplace's hypothesis, of their mode of formation,--are, in fact, just what we actually find them to be under any hypothesis,--electrical generation and transformation will proceed just the same whether the planets and sun were formed originally in one mode or in another. But, since this generally accepted hypothesis accounts for the light and heat of the sun, to a certain extent at least, and for a certain relatively brief period, while no other hypothesis has been able to sufficiently account for it at all, and while this hypothesis also finds both support and contradiction in many observed phenomena of our solar system, it may well occur that this hypothesis itself, based upon the necessity of accounting for the sun's light and heat, and which latter afford it its strongest basis of support, may, if the basis upon which the theory rests be found to be otherwise explicable, still remain as an end, while originally presented only as a means, and thus be held as an obstacle to the acceptance of the widely different interpretation of known facts herein presented, in the absence of any other hypothesis capable of explaining the same facts in accordance with this presentation of planetary electrical generation and the solar transformation of this energy into light and heat. Herbert Spencer mentions an instance of such perversion of means into an end as occurring during the agitation for the repeal