condensation its movement of rotation was accelerated, and these two
effects persisting, there resulted a principal planet, the centre of the
nebulous mass.

By watching attentively the spectator would then have seen other
molecules in the mass behave like the central planet, and condense in
the same manner by a movement of progressively-accelerated rotation, and
gravitate round it under the form of innumerable stars. The nebulae, of
which astronomers count nearly 5,000 at present, were formed.

Amongst these 5,000 nebulae there is one that men have called the Milky
Way, and which contains eighteen millions of stars, each of which has
become the centre of a solar world.

If the spectator had then specially examined amongst these eighteen
millions of stars one of the most modest and least brilliant, a star of
the fourth order, the one that proudly named itself the sun, all the
phenomena to which the formation of the universe is due would have
successively taken place under his eyes.

In fact, he would have perceived this sun still in its gaseous state,
and composed of mobile molecules; he would have perceived it turning on
its own axis to finish its work of concentration. This movement,
faithful to the laws of mechanics, would have been accelerated by the
diminution of volume, and a time would have come when the centrifugal
force would have overpowered the centripetal, which causes the molecules
all to tend towards the centre.

Then another phenomenon would have passed before the eyes of the
spectator, and the molecules situated in the plane of the equator would