Page:Daedalus; or, Science and the Future (1924, E.P. Dutton & Company).pdf/13

 SCIENCE AND THE FUTURE

which were deliberately, relentlessly, and successfully pursuing them.

The other picture is of three Euro- peans in India looking at a great new star in the milky way. These were apparently all of the guests at a large dance who were interested in such matters. Amongst those who were at all competent to form views as to the origin of this cosmoclastic explosion, the most popular theory attributed it to a collision between two stars, or a star and a nebula. There seem, how- ever, to be at least two possible alter- natives to this hypothesis. Perhaps it was the last judgment of some inhabited world, perhaps a too successful experi- ment in induced radio-activity on the part of some of the dwellers there. And perhaps also these two hypotheses are

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