1888.] on Antagonism, 299 



For if so, and the stars are assumed to be of an equal average bright- 

 ness, then if there be no loss or obstruction, as light from a star 

 decreases as the square of the distance and would from an infinite 

 number of stars probably 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, adolescent, mature, decaying, and 

 dying ; and when some of them, like nations at war, are broken up 

 by collision into fragments or resolved into vapour, 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 ux^on the Kosmos than the people now dying in 

 London have uj^on 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 sug- 

 gested by Mr. Crookes. I give no opinion on that, but I humbly 

 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, &c., 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 cannot comprehend infinity, 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 what- 

 ever be the case with some stars and planets, I cannot 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 

 apophthegms, Alice says, " Oh ! " " Ah," says the Duchess, " I could 

 say a good deal more if I chose." So could I ; but my relentless 

 antagonist oj)posite (the clock) warns me, and I will only add one 

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



[W. R. G.] 



