EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



universal clock is running down, let us ask our- 

 selves what it is that we really know. We shall 

 find that even when the objective validity of the 

 concept of time is impugned, there still remain 

 some difficulties in our argument. For instance, 

 we know nothing, or practically nothing, as to the 

 destiny of the heat-energy and light-energy which 

 are incessantly being radiated from the solar sys- 

 tem. Perhaps they are restoring the balance else- 

 where; the energy that is dissipated for us may 

 be marshalled for others. All we have observed 

 are certain facts as to the part of the universe 

 which we know ; but when the doctrine of the dis- 

 sipation of energy was framed, our universe was 

 thought to be infinite and the only universe. Yet 

 to-day the astronomers are inclined to think that 

 the stellar universe bounded by the Milky Way 

 may possibly be to the sum of things no more than 

 the solar system is to it. And even if our universe 

 be running down, there may be that in process else- 

 where which shall wind it up again ; a speculation 

 in which is implicit, let us mark, the assumption 

 that other universes, if such there be, and ours, 

 are interrelated. Yet who shall say whether this 

 assumption is gratuitous or not? Indeed, the 

 prophecy of universal death is a sorry piece of 

 presumption when we come to inquire into it. 

 Here, in a point of what they call infinite space 

 not that they can conceive space to be either in- 

 finite or finite is a race of beings, born but yes- 

 terday, whom gravitation bloweth where it listeth. 

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