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XLII. 



ON A SPECULATION AS TO A PKE-MATEEIAL CONDITION 

 OF THE UNIVEKSE. By J. JOLY, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S. 



[Read February 17, 1892.] 



" For lack of power to solve the question troubles tlie mind with doubts, 

 whether there was ever a birth-time of the world and whether likewise 

 there is to be any end." — Lucretius, Be Rerum Natura. 



"Then the angel threw up his glorious hands to the heaven of heavens, 

 saying, • End is there none to the Universe of God ? Lo ! also there is 

 no beginning.' " — Eichter, The Bream of the Universe. 



In the material universe we find presented to our senses a 

 physical development continually progressing, extending to all, 

 even the most minute, material configurations. Some fundamental 

 distinctions existing between this development as apparent in 

 the organic and the inorganic systems of the present day I have 

 already ventured to point out.^ In the present note, these 

 systems as having a common origin and common ending, are 

 merged in the same consideration as to the nature of the origin of 

 material systems in general. In short this present note is occupied 

 by the consideration of the necessity of limiting material interac- 

 tions in past time ; the speculation originating in the difficulty 

 of ascribing to these interactions infinite duration in the past. 

 These difl&culties first claim our consideration. 



Accepting the Kantian hypothesis in its widest extension, we 

 are referred to a primitive condition of wide material diffusion, 

 and necessarily too of material instability. The hypothesis is, 

 in fact, based upon material instability. We may pursue the 

 sequence of events assumed in this hypothesis into the future, 

 and into the past. 



In the future we find finality to progress clearly indicated. 



1 The Abundance of Life, These Proceedings. 



SCIEN. PROC. R.D.S., VOL. VII., PART V. 2X 



