MACHINERY OF THE HEAVENS RUNNING DOWN. 423 



are not the millions of years in which the geologist sym- 

 bolizes the age of the world. 



Nature thus, on every side, launches us forth upon the 

 borders of infinity. We flutter about like insects on a 

 flower-bed, and stand awed before the " boundless prairie," 

 the "primeval forest," or the "shoreless ocean." We speak 

 of planetary distances and stellar pathways, but our efforts 

 to compass thoughts like these are as the navigation of the 

 paper nautilus upon the heaving bosom of the broad Pa- 

 cific. 



And yet such quantities are not imaginary. Such inter- 

 vals as millions of ages will be passed y such intervals have 

 already passed. To the eye of that all-comprehending In- 

 telligence whose works these are, whose plans these are, 

 millions are but molecules in the constitution of a uni- 

 verse ; the lifetime of a planet vanishes as a thought. To 

 a being who is Infinity, the very linits of measurement are 

 infinity ; one stroke of the hand is infinite space, one step 

 of progress is infinite time. 



Where, then, is perpetuity ? The untutored savage looks 

 upon the ancient forest as all-enduring. His fathers sat be- 

 neath the shade of the self-same tree as stretches its arms 

 above his own squalid hut. The poet sings of the "eternal 

 hills," or fancies that in the ocean he discerns " the image 

 of eternity." The philosopher thought he had demonstra- 

 ted that at least the solid earth should endure forever, and 

 the coterie of planets should not cease to waltz about their 

 sun. But at length we discover not only that forests ap- 

 pear and disappear — not only that the mountains crumble 

 away from age to age, and Old Ocean himself has limits set 

 to his duration — but even yonder burning sun is slowly 

 waning, and the very earth is wearily plodding through 

 the mire of ether, and we can foresee the time when, with 

 all her energies wasted, the fire of her youth extinguished, 



