ly--less directly--less obviously--less artistically--than
through _the reaction of the originating Act_.

Recurring, then, to a previous suggestion, let us understand the
systems--let us understand each star, with its attendant planets--as but a
Titanic atom existing in space with precisely the same inclination for
Unity which characterized, in the beginning, the actual atoms after
their irradiation throughout the Universal sphere. As these original
atoms rushed towards each other in generally straight lines, so let us
conceive as at least generally rectilinear, the paths of the
system-atoms towards their respective centres of aggregation:--and in
this direct drawing together of the systems into clusters, with a
similar and simultaneous drawing together of the clusters themselves
while undergoing consolidation, we have at length attained the great
_Now_--the awful Present--the Existing Condition of the Universe.

Of the still more awful Future a not irrational analogy may guide us in
framing an hypothesis. The equilibrium between the centripetal and
centrifugal forces of each system, being necessarily destroyed upon
attainment of a certain proximity to the nucleus of the cluster to which
it belongs, there must occur, at once, a chaotic or seemingly chaotic
precipitation, of the moons upon the planets, of the planets upon the
suns, and of the suns upon the nuclei; and the general result of this
precipitation must be the gathering of the myriad now-existing stars of
the firmament into an almost infinitely less number of almost infinitely
superior spheres. In being immeasurably fewer, the worlds of that day
will be immeasurably greater than our own. Then, indeed, amid
unfathomable abysses, will be glaring unimaginable suns. But all this
will be merely a climacic magnificence foreboding the great End. Of this
End the new genesis described, can be but a very partial postponement.
While undergoing consolidation, the clusters themselves, with a speed
prodigiously accumulative, have been rushing towards their own general
centre--and now, with a thousand-fold electric velocity, commensurate
only with their material grandeur and with the spiritual passion of
their appetite for oneness, the majestic remnants of the tribe of Stars
flash, at length, into a common embrace. The inevitable catastrophe is
at hand.

But this catastrophe--what is it? We have seen accomplished the
ingathering of the orbs. Henceforward, are we not to und