380 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



CHAPTER XXXIY. 



POPULAR BELIEFS IN PERIODICAL CATASTROPHES TO THE 

 UNIVERSE. 



WHENCE come we, and whither are we tending ? 

 Whence this ponderous globe which we inhabit? 

 What vicissitudes has it undergone? What is its final 

 destination ? And when the drama of the world is closed, 

 what then ? Whence this magnificent system of a visible 

 universe? and of what inscrutable purposes does it -form a 

 part ? What is that which is first of all — the cause of all 

 — self-existent, uncreated, without beginning and without 

 end? 



These are grand problems — the most stupendous with 

 which the human mind can grapple. We can not presume 

 to offer their final solution, but we may venture to inquire 

 what light is thrown upon their solution by the converging 

 rays of all the sciences. 



These are problems which have engaged the attention of 

 thoughtful minds in every age of the world. If we look 

 into the pages of ancient philosophy, we find it every where 

 occupied with inquiries into the origin and destiny of the 

 universe — the different orders or kinds of existence — the 

 absolute existence, on which all other being depends — the 

 nature of Deity and of man, and their relations to each 

 other and to other grades of existence. These have been 

 the great, ever-present, obtrusive mysteries with which the 

 human mind has always been grappling. On the shores 

 of classic Greece we find Thales, Pythagoras, Zeno, Epicu- 

 rus, Plato, and a long and brilliant line of thinkers ponder- 



