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Transcriber’s Notes


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  The
  Destinies of the Stars

  By
  Svante Arrhenius, Ph.D.

  President, Nobel Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
  (Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1903)

  Authorized Translation from the Swedish
  By
  J. E. Fries
  Fellow A.I.E.E.

  _Illustrated_

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons
  New York and London
  The Knickerbocker Press
  1918




  COPYRIGHT, 1918
  BY
  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  The Knickerbocker Press, New York




TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE


When Dr. Svante Arrhenius in the year 1903 received the NOBEL PRIZE in
Chemistry it came as a fitting reward of his achievements principally
in the electro-chemical field. It was natural, however, that a genius
of his calibre would not limit his interest to the “infinitely
small” but would gradually broaden it to encompass the “infinitely
large.” And “to take an interest” means with Dr. Arrhenius to push
the boundaries of the unknown and of the unexplored a little farther
away from man. His evolution in this respect runs parallel with that
of all the great men who stand out as leaders in the history of
science. Wrapt up in the solution of a particular problem and fired
with the divine yearning to reach ultimate causes they are inevitably
driven to ever widening circles of research until this whole material
universe, its whence and whither, becomes the overpowering passion
of their spirits. Thus the mere titles of the works of Dr. Arrhenius,
read in the sequence of their publication, give us, better than any
biography, the history of a soul, which, no matter what his unprofessed
philosophical faith may be, constitutes our strongest evidence in
favour of that theory of “purposiveness” in the universe which Dr.
Arrhenius so heartily abhors (and justly so) when resorted to in
natural science, but which theory nevertheless (and justly so) is so
dear to the philosopher:--_Researches in Regard to the Conductivity of
Electrolytes; Conductivity of Extremely Diluted Solutions; Chemical
Theory of Electrolytes; Textbook in Theoretical Electro-Chemistry;
Textbook in Cosmological Physics; Worlds in the Making; Infinity of the
Universe; Life of the Universe as Conceived by Man from Earliest Ages
to the Present Time_;--thus run the titles of a few of the works we
already have by Dr. Arrhenius’ hand. How were it possible for him NOT
to write _The Destinies of the Stars_? The volume came as inevitably
as fruition follows flowering. What remains to be seen is if Dr.
Arrhenius can withstand the tremendous temptation that must be at work
in his soul to lift, be it ever so little, the curtain that separates
natural science and philosophy; we hope he will give in; we admire in
this book how he reads “The Riddle of the Milky Way”; we certainly wish
to know how he reads--the riddle of the universe.

_The Destinies of the Stars_ met with unexampled success in Sweden.
Three editions appeared within two months when the book was published
in November, 1915. The American version has been somewhat delayed
principally due to war conditions. This, however, has not been wholly
a loss to the English-speaking world as Dr. Arrhenius by no means has
been idle in the meantime. Considerable additional subject matter,
including three new pictures, has been added, chiefly based on the most
recent astronomical discoveries some of which have been recorded as
late as 1917.

For valuable suggestions and for all the American equivalents of the
metric measures in the original, the reader as well as the translator,
is indebted to a member of the Publishing House that presents this
volume in such an attractive way, Mr. E. W. Putnam, himself an ardent
lover of astronomy and a writer on the subject.

Dr. Arrhenius is justly renowned for his lucid style and polished form.
All that is lacking in these qualities within the covers of this volume
is wholly due to the deficiencies of the translator, who however could
not resist the temptation of transferring to Anglo-Saxon soil this
monument to the genius of his former teacher, Dr. Svante Arrhenius.

                    J. E. FRIES.

  BIRMINGHAM, ALA., December 15, 1917.




PREFACE


