The fact established, then, that attenuated aqueous vapor is diffused throughout the interplanetary space occupied by our own solar system, and that it tends to surround our sun and planetary bodies with aqueous envelopes of increased density, proportionate to the action of gravity, the question arises, Is there any known force which will act through such interplanetary space to decompose such aqueous vapor into its constituent elements and deposit hydrogen gas around the sun and oxygen gas around the planets, and which, while maintaining a planetary temperature such as we find on the planets, will at the same time raise the hydrogen envelope of the sun to such a temperature of incandescence that it will become a glowing sphere of heated hydrogen, in which other constituents of the sun's mass will be raised to incandescence and partially volatilized in the intense heat of that incandescent gas; in which, in fact, the phenomena of the sun will become manifest? If so, two vastly important corollaries are inevitable: first, that the fixed stars, which also shine with the light of their own glowing hydrogen, are themselves surrounded by a similar aqueous vapor, diffused through their own adjacent space, and that, in consequence, not only our own planetary distances, but all interstellar space, as far as the utmost distance of the faintest fixed stars, is likewise pervaded by the same attenuated aqueous vapor, and that this is the grand source from which is derived all solar energy, not only of our own sun, but of all the other flaming orbs of space; and, second, which is still more important to us as citizens of the universe, that each flaming hydrogen sun must have surrounding it a correlative dark planetary system of its own, and that the complement of glowing hydrogen, as an incandescent envelope of the central orb, necessitates the corresponding supplement of cool oxygen as an envelope for each of such planetary bodies; in other words, that without such planets as our system possesses, there can be no suns such as our own and the other suns we see. Vast orbs might be conceived of as rotating in eternal darkness without associated satellites, but the incandescent atmosphere of hydrogen must have--not may have, but must have--subordinate planets substantially similar to ours, surrounded by atmospheres substantially similar to our own (for we find free nitrogen in comets, in meteorites, and in the faintest nebulæ), and these planets are thus fitted, so far as we can know, for the support of organic life and for the same orderly courses of nature as we see manifest around us. They must be cool, for at the planetary poles there must be a moderate temperature in contrast with the solar pole, which becomes, of necessity, highly heated; they must have an atmosphere of oxygen in order that the solar center may have an atmosphere of hydrogen; these planetary atmospheres must be supplied with nitrogen, because nitrogen is universally available,