Ocf. 1 8, 1877] 



NATURE 



535 



our system were incandescent bodies as well, jast as the sun is 

 still to-day. If we go backwards from these suns we get, by 

 further conclusions, to accumulated masses of clouds, the em- 

 brjos of the later suns, then to cloud-bells, and eventually to 

 the gaseous mass distributed tolerably uniformly, and this is 

 the original state beyond which, with our present insight, we 

 cannot get. 



All this proves distinctly that just as upon the earth an eternal 

 change takes place, the heavens likewise are constantly changing. 

 Each change consists of a sum of motions, and supposes a former 

 change or sum of motions, from which it resulted with me- 

 chanic il necessity, and further Jon a chain of changes from all 

 eternity. Thus the gaseous state of our solar system must have 

 been preceded 'by a continuous endless series of changes, 

 and if our scientific insight does not lead us to this, does not 

 even justify us in this supposition, it thus proves only its own 

 inadequacy. 



We must, on the contrary, conclude from the eternity of 

 changes in the universe that the whole process of development 

 of our solar system or of the whole starry heaven, from the 

 original gaseous mass, through the bill-shaped nebula:, fiery and 

 dark globes, to the cold, solid, and dense mass, is only one of the 

 numberless successive periods, and that analogous periods and 

 occurrences have preceded and will follow endlessly. It is true 

 that we perfectly understanJ, according to our present physical 

 knowledge, how a mass of gas in a state of progressing conden- 

 sation produces heat, and how the hot condensed mass again 

 gives oft' this heat until its temperature and that of its surround- 

 ings, in our case that of universal space, have become equal. 

 But we do not understand how the solid mass can again become 

 gaseous, and how the necessary heat, distributed m universal 

 space, can again be collected. 



There is a gap in our knowledge at this point ; and we may 

 fill it by various suppositions. In the present state of almost com- 

 plete ignorance among physicists and chemists of the proper- 

 ties of chemical elements and of ether, it is possible that, with 

 stifficient condensation of matter and approach of its particles, 

 forces become active of which we have no idea at present, and 

 which may perhaps bring about an explosive dispersion of 

 the solid mass into a gaseous state. It is also possible that the 

 quantity of heat in the endless universe (not in our starry heaven) 

 is distributed unequally, and that there are domains in it which 

 are of a much higher, and others which are of a much lower, 

 temperature than our starry heaven ; that in the endless space of 

 the universe heat currents exist, similar to the air currents in our 

 atmosphere, and that we have perhaf s for some billions of years 

 been in one of these currents of lo.ver temperature, in which the 

 process of solidification continues on a large scale, just as on a 

 small scale it occurs on the earth's surface during north winds, 

 and that some hot current which sooner or later may pass through 

 our starry heaven miy again bring about a gaseous distribution 

 of matter. 



This example shos-s that we may use our experiences of 

 the finite only for deductions within the finite. As soon as man 

 wishes to overstep this domain, which is opened to him by his 

 senses and which is accessible to his knowledge, and wants to 

 form some conception of the v/hole, he fall; into absurdities. 

 Either he leaves unconsidered what he has gained by experience 

 and meditation, and then he loses himself in arbitrary and empty 

 fancies ; or he proceeds logically from the laws fo the finite and 

 then he finally arrives at perfectly ridiculous consequences. 



The example mentioned before may again serve to illustrate 

 this. The world known to us changes. If we follow these 

 changes according to the laws of causality, backward into the 

 past and forward into the future, and place ourselves upon the 

 before-mentioned physical stand-point of the nebular theory, 

 and adopt what is kno'.\n to us there as a measure, then we find 

 stages both in the past and the future which more and more 

 approach perfect rest, without ever reaching it altogether. But 

 if we assume a further point of view, and suppose that heavenly 

 bodies and systems of heavenly bodies arise ar.d perish without 

 end in the universe, then we find two possibdilies : either, accord- 

 ing to the materialistic conception, the suc.e-sive stages are of the 

 same value ; ot, according to the ptnlosophical conception, they 

 contmually change their relative value, becoming more perfect 

 every time, in which case the iniver.e woul 1 in the eternal past 

 nore and more apprcach absolute imperfection (therefore rest), 

 and in the eternal future absolute perfection (therefjre again rest). 

 All three conceptiuns aie equally irrational. The first (physical) 

 and the third (philosoph cal) let the world awaken from dead 

 rest and return to it. The second (materialistic) condemns it to 



eternal rest, because a change which always repeats itself, means 

 for an eternity nothing else but rest. 



With space we do not fare better than with time. We 

 naturally wish to imagine the universe as of finite extent in space 

 and thus make it accessible to our conception. But as the space 

 filled with matter can but everywhere be limited by more space 

 filled with matter, we arrive at the absurd deduction that the 

 world in its circumference is bordered by itself. But if we allow 

 infinity to universal space, and according to our ideas of space 

 it must be infinite, then heavenly bodies follow upon heavenly 

 bodies without end, in different sizes, different compositions, and 

 different stages of development. Now as size, composition, and 

 stages of development move within finite limits, the combi- 

 nations which are possible constitute of course, to our ideas, 

 an infinitely great, but yet not an endless number. If this 

 number is exhausted the same combinations must repeat them- 

 selves. We cannot deny this, even with the conviction that 

 centillions upon centillions of heavenly bodies or systems of 

 heavenly bodies would not suffice to complete the number of 

 possible combinations. Because centillions compared to endless- 

 ness are less than a drop of water compared to the ocean. We 

 therefore arrive at the mathematically correct, but to our reason 

 most absurd, deduction that our earth, just as it is now, must 

 occur several times, indeed an infinite number of times in the 

 universe, and that also the jubdee festival, which we celebrate 

 to-day, is celebrated just in the same way upon many other 

 earths. 



The logical consequences of this kind may be multiplied. The 

 examples suffice to show, that our finite reason is only accessible 

 to finite conceptions, and that, when it wishes to raise itself to 

 conceptions of the eternal in however logical a manner, its 

 wings become paralysed, and, like a second Icaru', before 

 the sunny heights are reached, it falls back into the depths of 

 finite and obscure ideas. 



(Jo be contimud.) 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Oxford. — The Physical Science Postmastership at Merton 

 College, has been awarded to Mr. E. T. Milner, of Manchester 

 Grammar School. 



Cambridge — Mr. J. N. Langley, B.A., of St. John's College, 

 has been elected a Fellow of Trinity College. Mr. Langley 

 was bracketed second in the first-class of Natural Science Tripos 

 1874- 



Edinburgh. — Mr. Thomas Annandale, who v/as assistant to 

 the late Prof Syme, has been appointed to the chair of Clinical 

 Surgery in Edinburgh University, vacant by the removal of Mr. 

 Lister to King's Codege, London. 



UrsAl.A. — The Scotsman of Thursday last, contains a very full 

 and interesting account of the recent Upsala celebration, 

 evidently by one of the Edinburgh delegates. The writer, 

 speaking of a visit he paid to one of the largest schools of 

 Upsala, built for about 500 pupils, says : — " Here, as elsewhere 

 in Sweden, the expense of education is wholly borne by, the 

 State. The pupils pay no fees. The building is spacious and 

 airy, and the class-rooms and playgrounds furnished, almost to 

 luxuriousness, with the requisites for the development of healthy 

 minds in healthy bodies. The arrangements for the securing of 

 the required heating and ventilation of the rooms during the long 

 severe winters of Sweden are particularly good. Nearly every 

 class-room is seated for about thirty pupils. Each pupil has his 

 own little desk before him, and a chair with a back fitting com- 

 fortably to his body, and adjustable as to height so as to suit each 

 pupil. This seat he ret.iins during the session, so that there is no 

 taking of places in the classes. There are several carefully- 

 selected libraries for the pupils in the schoul — a marked feature 

 of which is the number of books in English, French, and Ger- 

 man ; and there is the best proof everywhere that these volumes, 

 which are mostly classic authors in these languages, do not lie 

 idly on the shelves, in the number of Swedes one meets with who 

 can converse tolerably well in one or all of these languages. But 

 what struck us as deserving of the very warmest commendation, 

 are the well-appointed and well-kept museums of apparatus illus- 

 trative of the simplest and most fundamental facts of natural 

 philosophy and chemistry ; well-dried mounted specimens of the 

 common plants of the district ; stuffed and otherwise prepared 

 specimens of the Swedish fauna ; large models of typical plants 



