192 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. 



On the other hand, it would seem that unless new- 

 atoms were continually generated to repair the loss 

 of those which revert into prothyle, and to restore to 

 the universe the energy which is radiated out to its 

 confines, the theory will not only fail to dissipate 

 the fear of "a final decrepitude of the universe 

 through the dissipation of energy," but also invalid- 

 ate the famous metaphysical postulate of science 

 as to the conservation of the same amount of matter 

 in the universe, at least as far as sensible matter is 

 concerned. So it is not surprising to find passages 

 in which Mr. Crookes asserts that '' heat radiations 

 propagated outwards through the ether from the 

 ponderable matter of the universe, by some as yet 

 unknown process, are transformed at the confines 

 into the primary essential motions of chemical atoms, 

 which, the instant they are formed, gravitate in- 

 wards, and thus restore to the universe the energy 

 which would otherwise be lost to it." Hence it 

 is perhaps preferable at the present stage of the 

 inquiry to regard the continual generation and re- 

 generation of the universe as the theory more in 

 accordance with the spirit of pseudo-metaphysical 

 evolutionism. 



Thus, though stars and sidereal systems may have 

 come into being and perished, formed matter must 

 have been as eternal as prothyle, and it must be 

 held that the universe itself at no time was not.^ 

 The universe is an ever active, self-sustaining, and 

 self-sufficing organism, living on for ever, though 

 all its parts are born and die, and nourished by the 

 constant and correlative transformations of atomic 

 matter into prothyle and of prothyle into atoms, and 



1 In this respect also there is a marked similarity between Mr. 

 Crookes' cosmology and Aristotle's (cf. § 16 s.f.) 



