214 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mechanical conceptions did not break down in a novel situation (such 

 as development must bring about), there would be a constant selection 

 in favor of more and more correct ideas of these matters. Thus would 

 be attained the knowledge of that fundamental law upon which all sci- 

 ence rolls ; namely, that forces depend upon relations of time, space, and 

 mass. When this idea was once sufficiently clear, it would require no 

 more than a comprehensible degree of genius to discover the exact na- 

 ture of these relations. Such an hypothesis naturally suggests itself 

 but it must be admitted that it does not seem sufficient to account for 

 the extraordinary accuracy with which these conceptions applv to the 

 phenomena of Nature, and it is probable that there is some secret here 

 which remains to be discovered. 



V. 



Some important questions of logic depend upon whether we are to 

 consider the material universe as of limited extent and finite age, or 

 quite boundless in space and in time. In the former case, it is conceiv- 

 able that a general plan or design embracing the whole universe should 

 be discovered, and it would be proper to be on the alert for some traces 

 of such a unity. In the latter case, since the proportion of the world 

 of which we can have any experience is less than the smallest assign- 

 able fraction, it follows that we never could discover any pattern in the 

 universe except a repeating one ; any design embracing the whole would 

 be beyond our powers to discern, and beyond the united powers of all 

 intellects during all time. Now, what is absolutely incapable of being 

 known is, as we have seen in a former paper, not real at all. An ab- 

 solutely incognizable existence is a nonsensical phrase. If, therefore, 

 the universe is infinite, the attempt to find in it any design embracing 

 it as a whole is futile, and involves a false way of looking at the sub- 

 ject. If the universe never had any beginning, and if in space world 

 stretches beyond world without limit, there is no whole of material 

 things, and consequently no general character to the universe, and no 

 need or possibility of any governor for it. But if there was a time be- 

 fore which absolutely no matter existed, if there are certain absolute 

 bounds to the region of things outside of which there is a mere void, 

 then we naturally seek for an explanation of it, and, since we cannot 

 look for it among material things, the hypothesis of a great disembodied 

 animal, the creator and governor of the world, is natural enough. 



The actual state of the evidence as to the limitation of the universe 

 is as follows : As to time, we find on our earth a constant progress of de- 

 velopment since the planet was a red-hot ball ; the solar system seems 

 to have resulted from the condensation of a nebula, and the process 

 appears to be still going on. We sometimes see stars (presumably with 

 systems of worlds) destroyed and apparently resolved back into the 

 nebulous condition, but we have no evidence of any existence of the 

 world previous to the nebulous stage from which it seems to have been 



