THE EARTH AN EVOLUTION 33 



been in the past so will it be in time to come. 

 The present is not everlasting. The minds that 

 perceive upon this planet a thousand centuries in 

 the future will perceive a very different world from 

 that which the minds of this day perceive 

 different arts, animals, events, ideals, geographies, 

 sciences, and civilisations. The earth seems fixed 

 and changeless because we are so fleeting. We 

 see it but a moment, and are gone. The tossing 

 forest in the wrath of the storm is motionless 

 when looked at by a flash of lightning. The same 

 tendencies that have worked past changes are at 

 work to-day as tirelessly as in the past. By 

 invisible chisels the mountains are being sculp- 

 tured, ocean floors are lifting, and continents are 

 sinking into the seas. Species, systems, and 

 civilisations are changing, some crumbling and 

 passing away, others rising out of the ruins of the 

 departed. Mighty astronomical tendencies are 

 secretly but relentlessly at work, and immense 

 vicissitudes are in store for this clod of our 

 nativity. The earth is doomed to be frozen to 

 death. In a few million years, according to 

 astronomers, the sun will have shrunken to a 

 fraction of his present size, and will have become 

 correspondingly reduced in heat-giving powers. 

 It is estimated that in twelve or fifteen million 

 years the sun, upon whose mighty dispensations 

 all life and activity on the earth are absolutely 

 dependent, will become so enfeebled that no form 

 of life on the earth will be possible. The partially- 

 cooled earth itself is giving up its internal warmth, 



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