ELECTRIC UNIVERSE ETERNAL 255 



York Journal not long ago, that the only thing 

 of value to science was the tabulation of facts. The 

 mere tabulation of facts would be of as little value 

 to the world without causation, theory and hy- 

 pothesis, as the Egyptian hieroglyphics before the 

 discovery of the Rossetta Stone. 



Let us see what the learned astronomer, Prof. 

 Newcomb, says. He projects himself into the future 

 and starts out by imagining that from the central 

 observatory in the Himalayas, "Mars is signalling a 

 dark star." This, he says, was after "the world had 

 long been dull and stagnant." Now, I protest that 

 this world will never become dull and stagnant, 

 nor any part of this electric universe, but all will 

 go on steadily progressing to more perfect condi- 

 tions. Here is where our theories clash on the first 

 sentence. 



Then he proceeds to tell the kind of dullness and 

 stagnation that existed. He says almost every 

 scientific discovery had been made thousands of 

 years before, and all inventions had been perfected, 

 and everything went on as by machinery. The peace 

 of the world was settled and the time when men 

 fought and killed each other in war lay far back 

 in the mists of antiquity, and the newspapers chroni- 

 cled little but births, marriages, deaths and the 

 weather reports. "Only one language was spoken 

 the world over, and all gentlemen dined in blue 

 coats with gilt buttons and wore white neckties 

 with red borders." 



Now I cannot accept this as a true picture of our 

 earth at any time in its future, or the hypothesis 

 of human stagnation as possible or probable. I do 

 not regard the world's peace, and perfected machin- 



