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 "all time and all existence"? 

 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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