The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays Part 29

Duration in an ether filled with such motions would pa.s.s in a succession of mere unfruitful events; as duration, we may imagine, even now pa.s.ses in parts of the ether similar to our own. An endless (it may be) succession of unprogressive, fruitless events. But at one moment in the infinite duration the requisite configuration of the elementary motions is attained; solely by the one chance disposition the stability of all must go, spreading from the fateful point.

Possibly the material segregation was confined to one part of s.p.a.ce, the elementary motions condensing upon transformation, and so impoveris.h.i.+ng the ether around till the action ceased. Again in the same sense as the

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stars are simultaneous, so also they may be regarded as uniform in size, for the difference in magnitude might have been anything we please to imagine, if at the same time we ascribe sufficient distance sundering great and small. So, too;, will a dilute solution of acetate of soda build a crystal at one point, and the impoverishment of the medium checking the growth in this region, another centre will begin at the furthest extremities of the first crystal till the liquid is filled with loose feathery aggregations comparable in size with one another. In a similar way the crystallizing out of matter may have given rise, not to a uniform nebula in s.p.a.ce, but to detached nebula, approximately of equal ma.s.s, from which ultimately were formed the stars.

That an all-knowing Being might have foretold the ultimate event at any preceding period by observing the motions of the parts then occurring, and reasoning as to the train of consequences arising from these nations, is supposable. But considerations arising from this involve no difficulty in ascribing to this prematerial train of events infinite duration. For progress there is none, and we can quite as easily conceive of some part of s.p.a.ce where the same Infinite Intelligence, contemplating a similar train of unfruitful motions, finds that at no time in the future will the equilibrium be disturbed. But where evolution is progressing this is no longer conceivable, as being contradictory to the very idea of progressive development. In this case Infinite Intelligence

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_necessarily_ finds, as the result of his contemplation, the aggregation of matter, and the consequences arising therefrom.

The negation of so primary a material property as gravitation to these primitive motions of (or in) the ether, probably involves the negation of many properties we find a.s.sociated with matter.

Possibly the quality of inertia, equally primary, is involved with that of gravitation, and we may suppose that these two properties so intimately a.s.sociated in determining the motions of bodies in s.p.a.ce were conferred upon the primitive motions as crystallographic attraction and rigidity are first conferred upon the solid growing from the supersaturated liquid. But in some degree less speculative is the supposition that the new order of motions involved the transformation of much energy into the form of heat vibrations; so that the newly generated matter, like the newly formed crystal, began its existence in a medium richly fed with thermal radiant energy. We may consider that the thermal conditions were such as would account for a primitive dissociation of the elements. And, again, we recall how the physicist finds his estimate of the energy involved in mere gravitational aggregation inadequate to afford explanation of past solar heat. It is supposable, on such a hypothesis as we have been dwelling on, that the entire subsequent gravitational condensation and conversion of material potential energy, dating from the first formation of matter to the stage of star formation

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may be insignificant in amount compared with the conversion of etherial energy attending the crystallizing out of matter from the primitive motions. And thus possibly the conditions then obtaining involved a progressively increasing complexity of material structure the genesis of the elements, from an infra-hydrogen possessing the simplest material configuration, resulting ultimately in such self-luminous nebula as we yet see in the heavens.

The late James Croll, in his _Stellar Evolution_, finds objections to an eternal evolution, one of which is similar to the "metaphysical" objection urged in this paper. His way out of the difficulty is in the speculation that our stellar system originated by the collision of two ma.s.ses endowed with relative motion, eternal in past duration, their meeting ushering in the dawn of evolution. However, the state of aggregation here a.s.sumed, from the known laws of matter and from a.n.a.logy, calls for explanation as probably the result of prior diffusion, when, of course, the difficulty is only put back, not set at rest. Nor do I think the primitive collision in harmony with the number of relatively stationary nebula visible in s.p.a.ce.

The metaphysical objection is, I find, also urged by George Salmon, late Provost of Trinity College, in favour of the creation of the universe.--(_Sermons on Agnosticism_.)

A. Winch.e.l.l, in _World Life_, says: "We have not

the slightest scientific grounds for a.s.suming that matter existed in a certain condition from all eternity. The essential activity of the powers ascribed to it forbids the thought; for all that we know, and, indeed, as the _conclusion_ from all that we know, primal matter began its progressive changes on the morning of its existence."

Finally, in reference to the hypothesis of a unique determination of matter after eternal duration in the past, it may not be out of place to remind the reader of the complexity which modern research ascribes to the structure of the atom.