MA CHINE R T OF THE HE A VENS R UNNING D WN. 427 



through space at the rate of one hundred and fifty millions 

 of miles a year. And yet so vast is the circuit upon which 

 he is launched that 18,200,000 years will have faded away 

 before he shall have completed a single revolution. 



If throughout all these boundless intervals of space a re- 

 sisting ether is present — if it be a fact that a material fluid 

 pervades all the wide realms which light has traversed, 

 what is the conclusion which looms up as a consequence ? 

 Are we not compelled to recognize the fact that every sun 

 in our firmament, as it journeys round and round in its cir- 

 cuit of millions of years, is slowly, but surely as Encke's 

 comet, approaching the centre of its orbit ? And in that 

 most distant future, the contemplation of which almost par- 

 alyzes our powers of thought, is it not certain that all these 

 suns must be piled together in a cold and lifeless mass ? 



I forbear to say more. With reverence I refrain from 

 the attempt to lift the veil which conceals the destiny of 

 other firmaments. I dare not hazard the inquiry whether 

 an immensity of firmaments may not be executing their 

 grand gyrations on a still larger scale ; and whether these, 

 in turn, may not be destined to a grander cosmical con- 

 glomeration. It is vain to push our conjectures farther. 

 We have even here entered upon the border-land of infinite 

 space. In the presence of Infinity, what can man do but 

 bow his head and worship ? 



Reason assures us that somewhere the tendency to cen- 

 tral aggregation must be stayed. A universe of worlds 

 can never be gathered together in a single mass. Within 

 the bounds of the visible we see all matter wending its 

 way toward centres of gravity. Within the bounds of our 

 firmament we see all matter tending toward one centre. 

 Let us content ourselves to speak of this. This shall be 

 our universe. This is the universe whose final aggrega- 

 tion into one mass we are compelled to contemplate. 



