ANTAG0NIS3I. 623 



strongest. If twenty men be wrecked on a secluded island which 

 will only support ten, which ten have a right to the produce of 

 the island ? Nature gives no voice, and the strongest take it. 

 You may further ask me, Cui bono ? what is the use of this dis- 

 quisition ? I should answer. If the views be true, it is always use- 

 ful to know the truth. The greatest discoveries have appeared 

 useless at the time. Kepler's discovery of the relations of the 

 planetary movements appeared of no use at the time ; no one 

 would now pronounce it useless. I can, however, see much prob- 

 able utility in the doctrine I have advocated. The conviction of 

 the necessity of antagonism, and that without it there would be 

 no light, heat, electricity, or life, may teach us (assuming free 

 will) to measure effort by the probable result and to estimate the 

 degree of probability. It may teach us not to waste our powers 

 on fruitless objects, but to utilize and regulate this necessity of 

 existence ; for, if my views are correct, too much or too little is 

 bad, and a due proportion is good (like many other useful things, 

 it is best in moderation), to accept it rather as a boon than a bane, 

 and to know that we can not do good without effort — that is, with- 

 out some suffering. 



I have spoken of antagonism as pervading the universe. Is 

 there, you may ask, any limit in point of time or space to force ? 

 If there be so^ there must be a limit to antagonism. It is said that 

 heat tends to dissipate itself, and all things necessarily to acquire 

 a uniform temperature. This would in time tend practically, 

 though not absolutely, to the annihilation of force and to uni- 

 versal death ; but if there be evidence of this in our solar system 

 and what we know of some parts of the universe, which probably 

 is but little, is there no conceivable means of reaction or regener- 

 ation of active heat ? There is some evidence of a probable zero 

 of temperature for gases as we know them, i. e., a temperature so 

 low that at it matter could not exist in a gaseous form ; but pass- 

 ing over gases and liquids, if matter becomes solid by loss of heat, 

 such solid matter would coalesce, masses would be formed, these 

 would gravitate to each other and come into collision. It would 

 be the nebular hypothesis over again. Condensation and collis- 

 ions would again generate heat ; and so on ad infinitum. 



Collisions in the visible universe are probably more frequent 

 than is usually supposed. New nebulae appear where there were 

 none before, as recently in the constellation of Andromeda. Mr. 

 Lockyer, as I have said, considers that they are constant in the nebu- 

 lae ; and if there be such a number of meteorites as are stated to fall 

 daily into the atmosphere of this insignificant planet, what num- 

 bers must there be in the universe ? There must be a sort of fog 

 of meteorites, and this may account, coupled with possibly some 

 dissipation of light or change of it into other forces, for the smaller 



