THE MEANING OF DISSOLUTION 



They have lately discovered that their prison-home 

 is moving, but are not sure whither. The other 

 day they made a few experiments, which they 

 have interpreted as their reason permits them, 

 and which they infer to imply that All things 

 are coming to a stand-still. They were not there 

 when the dance began, nor will they see its con 

 clusion. Their total life history can be but a 

 moment in its course, but they are assured that it 

 did begin and will end; for are they not the priv 

 ileged spectators of &quot;all time and all existence&quot;? 

 The reader must not say that science points to a 

 conclusion which I dislike, and that I am trying to 

 sail away from it on the inflated wings of rhetoric. 

 If science does point to this conclusion, then it 

 must be accepted; but the question is whether so 

 tremendous an inference, involving a whole host 

 of tacit and unexamined assumptions, can legiti 

 mately be drawn from the known data. I main 

 tain that it cannot. If it were necessary, I might 

 quote the considerations advanced by Lord Kelvin 

 himself in 1874, to show that certain indications 

 point to the restoration, not of energy, but of its 

 availability; and these considerations might be re 

 inforced by the inquiries of the past thirty years. 

 But I am not prepared to admit that the question 

 of the death of the universe can be solved by any 

 balancing of known or conceivably knowable con 

 siderations. If, for instance, there be no other 

 universes than that which perhaps the galaxy 

 bounds, I do not see how their existence could be 



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