Earth as an Abode fitted for Life. 71 



"To suppose, as Lyell, adopting the chemical hypothesis, has done*, 

 that the substances, combining together, may be again separated electro- 

 lytically by thermo-electric currents, due to the heat generated by their 

 combination, and thus the chemical action and its heat continued in an 

 endless cycle, violates the principles of natural philosophy in exactly the 

 same manner, and to the same degree, as to believe that a clock con- 

 structed with a self-winding movement may fulfil the expectations of its 

 ingenious inventor by going for ever." 



It was only by sheer force of reason that geologists have 

 been compelled to think otherwise, and to see that there was 

 a definite beginning, and to look forward to a definite end, 

 of this world as an abode fitted for life. 



§ 11. It is curious that English philosophers and writers 

 should not have noticed how Newton treated the astro- 

 nomical problem. Play fair, in what I have read to yon, speaks 

 of the planetary^ system as being absolutely eternal, and 

 unchangeable : having had no beginning and showing no 

 signs of progress towards an end. He assumes also that the 

 sun is to go on shining for ever, and that the earth is to go on 

 revolving round it for ever. He quite overlooked Laplace's 

 nebular theory ; and he overlooked Newton's counterblast 

 to the planetary " perpetual motion.'" Newton, commenting 

 on his own f First Law of Motion,' says, in his terse Latin, 

 which I will endeavour to translate, a But the greater bodies 

 of planets and comets moving in spaces less resisting, keep 

 their motions longer," That is a strong counterblast against 

 any idea of eternity in the planetary system. 



§ 12. I shall now, without further preface, explain, and I 

 hope briefly, so as not to wear out your patience, some of the 

 arguments that I brought forward between 1862 and 1869, 

 to show strict limitations to the possible age of the earth as 

 an abode fitted for life. 



Kant f pointed out in the middle of last century, what had 

 not previously been discovered by mathematicians or physical 

 astronomers, that the frictional resistance against tidal cur- 

 rents on the earth's surface must cause a diminution of the 

 earth's rotational speed. This really great discovery in 



* 'Principles of Geology,' chap. xxxi. ed. 1853. 



f In an essay first published in the Koenigsberg Nackrichten, 1754, 

 Nos. 23, 24 ; having been written with reference to the offer of a prize by 

 the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1754. Here is the title-page, in full, 

 as it appears in vol. vi. of Kant's Collected Works, Leipzig, 1839 : — 

 Untersuchung der Frage : Ob die Erde in ihrer Umdrenung um die Achse, 

 wodurch sie die Abwechselung des Tages und der Nacht hervorbringt, 

 einige Veranderung seit den ersten Zeiten ihres Ursprunges erlitten habe, 

 welches die Ursache davon sei, und woraus man sich ihrer versichern 

 konne ? welche von der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu 

 Berlin zum Preise aufgegeben worden, 1754. 



