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
iii
When Dr. Svante Arrhenius in the year1903 received the Nobel Prize in Chemistryit came as a fitting reward of his achievementsprincipally in the electro-chemical field. Itwas natural, however, that a genius of hiscalibre would not limit his interest to the“infinitely small” but would gradually broadenit to encompass the “infinitely large.”And “to take an interest” means with Dr.Arrhenius to push the boundaries of theunknown and of the unexplored a little fartheraway from man. His evolution in thisrespect runs parallel with that of all the greatmen who stand out as leaders in the history ofscience. Wrapt up in the solution of a particularproblem and fired with the divineyearning to reach ultimate causes they areinevitably driven to ever widening circles ofresearch until this whole material universe,ivits whence and whither, becomes the overpoweringpassion of their spirits. Thus themere titles of the works of Dr. Arrhenius,read in the sequence of their publication,give us, better than any biography, the historyof a soul, which, no matter what hisunprofessed philosophical faith may be, constitutesour strongest evidence in favour ofthat theory of “purposiveness” in the universewhich Dr. Arrhenius so heartily abhors (andjustly so) when resorted to in natural science,but which theory nevertheless (and justly so)is so dear to the philosopher:—Researches inRegard to the Conductivity of Electrolytes;Conductivity of Extremely Diluted Solutions;Chemical Theory of Electrolytes; Textbook inTheoretical Electro-Chemistry; Textbook in CosmologicalPhysics; Worlds in the Making;Infinity of the Universe; Life of the Universe asConceived by Man from Earliest Ages to thePresent Time;—thus run the titles of a few ofthe works we already have by Dr. Arrhenius’hand. How were it possible for him NOTto write The Destinies of the Stars? Thevvolume came as inevitably as fruition followsflowering. What remains to be seen is ifDr. Arrhenius can withstand the tremendoustemptation that must be at work in his soulto lift, be it ever so little, the curtain thatseparates natural science and philosophy;we hope he will give in; we admire in thisbook how he reads “The Riddle of the MilkyWay”; we certainly wish to know how hereads—the riddle of the universe.
The Destinies of the Stars met with unexampledsuccess in Sweden. Three editionsappeared within two months when the bookwas published in November, 1915. TheAmerican version has been somewhat delayedprincipally due to war conditions.This, however, has not been wholly a loss tothe English-speaking world as Dr