SCIENCE 



infinitely large. In celestial mechanics there is no 

 friction; the dissipation of energy does not take 

 place. How can the All either gain or lose? The Cos- 

 mos is a circle that has neither beginning nor end. 

 On the earth's surface the laws of lines and angles 

 rule, but among the orbs there is another law. All 

 the work of man's hands involve detachment, dis- 

 continuity, beginnings and endings, under and 

 over, falling and rising, but outside of the earth 

 these conceptions do not apply. They apply only in 

 the realm of parts and fragments. The sun, of course, 

 dissipates energy, but can the sum total of the energy 

 of the Cosmos be either increased or diminished? 

 It is like the dissipation of moisture on the earth — 

 the water takes another form. 



There has been but one cosmic poet, Whitman. 

 The orbs occupy him more than they have occupied 

 any other and all other poets. 



§ 

 The slowness of the changes in cosmic nature is 

 suggested by the changes in the period of the 

 earth's rotation, which, philosophers calculate, has 

 been lengthened about one three-hundredth part 

 of a second since 720 years B.cl This is certainly 

 holding the astronomical forces to a pretty rigid 

 account. It seems that Whitman was not quite 

 within the truth — the scientific truth — in his 

 rhapsody on the earth when he said it revolved 

 forever and ever in its own orbit without the un- 

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