670 Scientific Proceedings^ Royal Dublin Society. 



motions, radiation growing feebler each moment, and finally a 

 lower kinetic condition, and another cycle of equilibrium. We 

 may, indeed, affirm that higher equilibrium than the liquid (a state 

 of gaseous supersaturation) is possible, or a metamorphic change 

 possible yet to the solid. We may even go further and push the 

 equilibrium of the gas back to that of the prematerial motions 

 we are considering, or carry the equilibrium of the solid through 

 descending stages till an absolute deprivation of heat renders 

 further change impossible, or determines yet another departure 

 of matter from its present laws. We may picture any such series 

 of changes, but at each stage of equilibrium we find that pause 

 which need not be finite in duration, and between the stages the 

 hurrying change of evolution. 



Our speculation is that we, as spectators of evolution, are 

 witnessing the interaction of forces which have not always been 

 acting. A prematerial state of the universe was one of unfruitful 

 motions, that is, motions unattended by progressing changes, in 

 our region of the ether. How extended we cannot say ; the 

 nature of the motions we know not ; but they differed from 

 matter in the one important particular of not possessing gravita- 

 tional attraction. Such kinetic configurations we cannot consider 

 to be matter. It was possible to construct matter by their summa- 

 tion or linkage as the configuration of the crystal is possible in 

 the clear supersaturated liquid. 



Duration in an ether filled with such motions would pass in a 

 succession of mere unfruitful events ; as duration, we may 

 imagine, even now passes in parts of the ether similar to our own. 

 An endless (it may be) succession of unprogressive, fruitless events. 

 But at one moment in the infinite duration the requisite configura- 

 tion of the elementary motions is attained ; solely by the one 

 chance disposition the stability of all must go, spreading from 

 the fateful point, as the crystal advances, building its chambers 

 from the irregular configurations of the liquid. 



Possibly the material segregation was confined to one part of 

 space, the elementary motions condensing upon transformation, 

 and so impoverishing the ether around till the action ceased. 

 Again in the same sense as the stars are simultaneous, so also 

 they may be regarded as uniform in size, for the difference in 

 magnitude might have been anything we please to imagine ; if 



