AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 199 



came into being; or if its death be indeed a fore-doomed 

 fact, whether it may not after all be that it will undergo 

 self -cremation and, supreme Phoenix as it would then be, 

 evolve a new "universe" of at least equal splendor, from 

 its own infinite nebulosity, for "ashes" assuredly there 

 could then be none. 



Fortunately a way cut of this grave difficulty seems 

 already provided. It may be that the inevitable and 

 seemingly final "dissipation of energy" is but a phase 

 of the wider process known as the conservation of energy. 



This doctrine affirms in what is now accepted as an 

 axiom of science that the total quantity of energy in 

 the universe remains and must continue to remain 

 unchanged. Energy can neither be brought into exist- 

 ence nor put out of existence. To bring energy into 

 existence must pre-suppose the existence of energy. And, 

 as the energy previously existing could act only through 

 the reaction of that upon which it acts, the energy 

 brought into existence must have already been in 

 existence. 



Energy, then, is not merely something existing, not 

 merely something indestructible, it is evidently also 

 something uncreated, something the creation of which 

 is inconceivable. But if energy cannot be created, then 

 all energy now existing must always have been in exist- 

 ence. So, too, on the other hand it must require energy 

 to destroy energy. And the destroying energy must be 

 greater than that destroyed. Nay, as we have already 

 seen, there are not many energies, but only one all-inclu- 

 sive energy. And evidently this total unit of energy 

 could not destroy itself in any degree. For in acting 

 upon itself it could only bring itself into equilibrium; 



