sm, as man is the former when compared with
his own little solar cosmos.

What are the proofs of science? The solar spots (a misnomer, like much
of the rest)? But these do not prove the solidity of the "central
mass," any more than the storm-clouds prove the solid mass of the
atmosphere behind them. Is it the non-coextensiveness of the sun's
body with its apparent luminous dimensions, the said "body" appearing
"a solid mass, a dark sphere of matter confined within a fiery
prison-house, a robe of fiercest flames?" We say that there is indeed a
"prisoner" behind, but that having never yet been seen by any physical,
mortal eye, what he allows to be seen of him is merely a gigantic
reflection, an illusive phantasma of "solar appendages of some sort," as
Mr. Proctor honestly calls it. Before saying anything further, we will
consider the next interrogatory.

Question II.--Is the Sun merely a cooling mass?

Such is the accepted theory of modern science: it is not what the
"Adepts" teach. The former says--the sun "derives no important
accession of heat from without:"--the latter answer--"the sun needs it
not." He is quite as self dependent as he is self-luminous; and for
the maintenance of his heat requires no help, no foreign accession of
vital energy; for he is the heart of his system, a heart that will not
cease its throbbing until its hour of rest shall come. Were the sun "a
cooling mass," our great life-giver would have indeed grown dim with age
by this time, and found some trouble to keep his watch-fires burning for
the future races to accomplish their cycles, and the planetary chains to
achieve their rounds. There would remain no hope for evoluting
humanity; except perhaps in what passes for science in the astronomical
textbooks of Missionary Schools--namely, that "the sun has an orbital
journey of a hundred millions of years before him, and the system yet
but seven thousand years old!" (Prize Book, "Astronomy for General
Readers.")

The "Adepts," who are thus forced to demolish before they can
reconstruct, deny most emphatically (a) that the sun is in combustion,
in any ordinary sense of the word; or (b) that he is incandescent, or
even burning, though he is glowing; or (c) that his luminosity has
already begun to weaken and his power of combustion may be exhausted
within a given and conceivable time; or even (d) that his chemical and
physical constitution contains any of the elements of terrestri