JoLY — A Pre-J\[atenal Condition of the Universe. 565 



may be considered a physical objection, as it is involved directly 

 in the phenomena presented by our universe. 



The metaphysical objection must have presented itself to 

 everyone who has considered the question. It may be put thus : 

 — If present events are merely one stage in an infinite progress, 

 why is not the present stage long ago passed over? We are 

 evidently at liberty to push back any stage of progress to as 

 remote a period as we like by putting back first the one before 

 this and next the stage preceding this, and so on, for, by hypo- 

 thesis, there is no beginning to the progress. 



Thus, the sum of passing events constituting the present 

 universe should long ago have been accomplished and passed 

 away. If we consider alternative hypotheses not involving this 

 difficulty, we are at once struck by the fact that the future of 

 material development is free of the objection. For the eternity 

 of unprogressive events involved in the future of Kant's hypothesis, 

 is not only thinkable, but any change is, as observed, irreconcilable 

 with our ideas of energy. As in the future so in the past we look 

 to a cessation to progress. But as we believe the activity of the 

 present universe must in some form have existed all along, the 

 only refuge in the past is to imagine an active but unprogressive 

 eternity, the unprogressive activity at some period becoming a 

 progressive activity — that progressive activity of which we are 

 spectators. To the unprogressive activity there was no beginning; 

 in fact, beginning is as unthinkable and uncalled for to the unpro- 

 gressive activity of the past as ending is to the unprogressive 

 activity of the future, when all developmental actions shall have 

 ceased. There is no beginning or ending to the activity of the 

 universe. There is beginning and ending to present progressive 

 activity. Looking through the realm of nature we seek beginning 

 and ending, but " passing through nature to eternity " we find 

 neither. Both are justified ; the materialistic question of the 

 ancient poet, the transcendental answer of the modern quoted at 

 the head of this Paper. 



The next objection, which is in part metaphj^sical, is founded 

 on the difficulty of ascribing any ultimate reality or potency to 

 forces diminishing through eternal time. Thus, against the 

 assumption that our universe is the result of aggregations pro- 

 gressing over eternal time, which involves the primitive infinite 



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