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[The paragraph which here follows, though it contains some questionable propositions, I reproduce just as it stood when first published in 1858, for reasons which will presently be apparent.]

It may be well to consider more closely, what is the probable condition of the Sun’s surface. Round the globe of incandescent molten substances, thus conceived to form the visible body of the Sun [which in conformity with the argument in a previous section, now transferred to the Addenda, was inferred to be hollow and filled with gaseous matter at high tension] there is known to exist a voluminous atmosphere: the inferior brilliancy of the Sun’s border, and the appearances during a total eclipse, alike show this. What now must be the constitution of this atmosphere? At a temperature approaching a thousand times that of molten iron, which is the calculated temperature of the solar surface, very many, if not all, of the substances we know as solid, would become gaseous; and though the Sun’s enormous attractive force must be a powerful check on this tendency to assume the form of vapour, yet it cannot be questioned that if the body of the Sun consists of molten substances, some of them must be constantly undergoing evaporation. That the dense gases thus continually being generated will form the entire mass of the solar atmosphere, is not probable. If anything is to be inferred, either from the Nebular Hypothesis, or from the analogies supplied by the planets, it must be concluded that the outermost part of the solar atmosphere consists of what are called permanent gases–gases that are not condensible into fluid even at low temperatures. If we consider what must have been the state of things here, when the surface of the Earth was molten, we shall see that round the still molten surface of the Sun, there probably exists a stratum of dense aeriform matter, made up of sublimed metals and metallic compounds, and above this a stratum of comparatively rare medium analogous to air. What now will happen with these two strata? Did they both consist of permanent gases, they could not remain separate: according to a well-known law, they would eventually form a homogeneous mixture. But this will by no means happen when the lower stratum consists of matters that are gaseous only at excessively high temperatures. Given off from a molten surface, ascending, expanding, and cooling, these will presently reach a limit of elevation above which they cannot exist as vapour, but must condense and precipitate. Meanwhile the upper stratum, habitually charged with its quantum of these denser matters, as our air with its quantum of water, and ready to deposit them on any depression of temperature, must be habitually unable to take up any more of the lower stratum; and therefore this lower stratum will remain quite distinct from it.[20]

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Considered in their ensemble, the several groups of evidences assigned amount almost to proof. We have seen that, when critically examined, the speculations of late years current respecting the nature of the nebulae, commit their promulgators to sundry absurdities; while, on the other hand, we see that the various appearances these nebulae present, are explicable as different stages in the precipitation and aggregation of diffused matter. We find that the immense majority of comets (i.e. omitting the periodic ones), by their physical constitution, their immensely-extended and variously-directed paths, the distribution of those paths, and their manifest structural relation to the Solar System, bear testimony to the past existence of that system in a nebulous form. Not only do those obvious peculiarities in the motions of the planets which first suggested the Nebular Hypothesis, supply proofs of it, but on closer examination we discover, in the slightly-diverging inclinations of their orbits, in their various rates of rotation, and their differently-directed axes of rotation, that the planets yield us yet further testimony; while the satellites, by sundry traits, and especially by their occurrence in greater or less abundance where the hypothesis implies greater or less abundance, confirm this testimony. By tracing out the process of planetary condensation, we are led to conclusions respecting the physical states of planets which explain their anomalous specific gravities. Once more, it turns out that what is inferable from the Nebular Hypothesis respecting the temperatures of celestial bodies, is just what observation establishes; and that both the absolute and the relative temperatures of the Sun and planets are thus accounted for. When we contemplate these various evidences in their totality–when we observe that, by the Nebular Hypothesis, the leading phenomena of the Solar System, and the heavens in general, are explicable; and when, on the other hand, we consider that the current cosmogony is not only without a single fact to stand on, but is at variance with all our positive knowledge of Nature, we see that the proof becomes overwhelming.