According to the ancient signification of the Titanic
myth,* the powers of organic life, that is to say, the great order of
nature, depend upon the combined action of heaven and earth.
[footnote] *Otfried Muller, 'Prolegomena', s. 373.
If we suppose that the Earth, like all the other planets, primordially
belonged, according to its origin, to the central body, the Sun, and to the
solar atmosphere that has been separated into nebulous
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rings, the same connection with this continguous Sun, as well as with all
the remote suns that shine in the firmament, is still revealed through the
phenomena of light and radiating heat. The difference in the degree of
these actions must not lead the physicist, in his delineation of nature, to
forget the connection and the common empire of similar forces in the
universe. A small fraction of telluric heat is derived from the regions of
universal space in which our planetary system is moving, whose temperature
(which according to Fourier, is almost equal to our mean icy polar heat) is
the result of the combined radiation of all the stars. The causes that more
powerfully excite the light of the Sun in the atmosphere and in the upper
strata of our air, that give rise to heat-engendering electric and magnetic
currents, and awaken and genially vivify the vital spark in organic
structures on the earth's surface, must be reserved for the subject of our
future consideration.
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