396 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



All the material forces, therefore, of the universe, both 

 mechanical and physiological, with their actions and reac 

 tions, their equilibria and perturbations, are tending grad 

 ually toward a general and permanent rest. The threads 

 of their mutual connection may be closely interwoven, but 

 somewhere there is a beginning and an end. Within the 

 grand cycle of their active lifetime apparent circles may 

 be described, but, like the eddies of a river stream, they are 

 lost in the general current, or, like the gyrations of a disk 

 descending through the sea, they are only apparent, and 

 wend their way toward ultimate rest. The same exact 

 conditions are never* reproduced. [See Appendix, Note 

 IX.] 



