--Well, then, how did the little beast which is peculiar to that special
complaint intrude himself into the Order of Things? You don't suppose
there was a special act of creation for the express purpose of bestowing
that little wretch on humanity, do you?
I thought, on the whole, I would n't answer that question.
--You and I are at work on the same problem, said the Young Astronomer to
the Master.---I have looked into a microscope now and then, and I have
seen that perpetual dancing about of minute atoms in a fluid, which you
call molecular motion. Just so, when I look through my telescope I see
the star-dust whirling about in the infinite expanse of ether; or if I do
not see its motion, I know that it is only on account of its immeasurable
distance. Matter and motion everywhere; void and rest nowhere. You ask
why your restless microscopic atoms may not come together and become
self-conscious and self-moving organisms. I ask why my telescopic
star-dust may not come together and grow and organize into habitable
worlds,--the ripened fruit on the branches of the tree Yggdrasil, if I
may borrow from our friend the Poet's province. It frightens people,
though, to hear the suggestion that worlds shape themselves from
star-mist. It does not trouble them at all to see the watery spheres
that round themselves into being out of the vapors floating over us; they
are nothing but raindrops.
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