624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



degree of light than would be expected if the imiverse of stellar 

 bodies were infinite. For if so, and the stars are assumed to be of 

 an equal average brightness, then if no loss or obstruction, as light 

 decreases as the square of the distance and stars increase in the 

 same ratio, the night would be as brightly illuminated as the day. 

 We are told that there are stars of different ages — nascent, adoles- 

 cent, mature, decaying, and dying ; and when some of them, like 

 nations at war, are broken up by collision into fragments or re- 

 solved into vapor, the particles fight as individuals do, and, like 

 them, end by coalescing and forming new suns and planets. As 

 the comparatively few people who die in London to-night do not 

 affect us here, so in the visible universe one sun or planet in a 

 billion or more may die every century and not be missed, while 

 another is being slowly born out of a nebula. Thus worlds may 

 be regenerated by antagonism without having for the time more 

 effect upon the Cosmos than the people now dying in London 

 have upon us. I do not venture to say that these collisions are 

 in themselves sufficient to renew solar life ; time may give us 

 more information. There may be other modes of regeneration or 

 renewed activity of the dissipated force, and some of a molecular 

 character. The conversion of heat into atomic force has been 

 suggested by Mr. Crookes. I give no opinion on that, but I hum- 

 bly venture to doubt the mortality of the universe. 



Again, is the universe limited ? and if so, by what ? Not, I 

 presume, by a stone wall ! or, if so, where does the wall end ? Is 

 space limited, and how ? If space be unlimited and the universe 

 of suns, planets, etc., limited, then the visible universe becomes a 

 luminous speck in an infinity of dark, vacuous space, and the gases, 

 or at all events the so-called ether, unless limited in elasticity, 

 would expand into this vacuum — a limited quantity of ether into 

 an infinite vacuum ! If the universe of matter be unlimited in 

 space, then the cooling down may be unlimited in time. But these 

 are perhaps fruitless speculations. We can not comprehend in- 

 finity, neither can we conceive a limitation to it. I must once 

 more quote Shakespeare, and say in his words, "It is past the 

 infinite of thought." But whatever be the case with some stars 

 and planets, I can not bring myself to believe in a dead universe 

 surrounded by a dark ocean of frozen ether. Most of you have 

 read " Wonderland," and may recollect that after the Duchess has 

 uttered some ponderous and enigmatical apothegms, Alice says, 

 " Oh ! " " Ah," says the Duchess, " I could say a good deal more 

 if I (?hose." So could I ; but my relentless antagonist opposite 

 (the clock) warns me, and I will only add one more word, which 

 you will be glad to hear, and that word is — Finis. — Nature. 



