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SYDNEY T. KLEIN, F.L.S., P.R.A.S., ON 



hour ago. Let us go further to one of the nearest fixed stars. 

 We see the star as it was more than ten years ago ; that star 

 may therefore have exploded or disappeared ten long years ago, 

 and yet we still see it shining, and shall continue to see it until 

 the long line of light has run itself out ; all around us, in fact, 

 are the appearances of blazing suns as they were thousands of 

 years ago, and by the aid of the telescope and of our sensitive 

 plate, we catch the light which started from clusters and 

 firmaments probably millions of years ago. Now let us take 

 the converse of this. To anybody on the moon the earth would 

 be seen as it was seconds ago, and from the sun as it. was 

 eight minutes ago ; and if we were at this particular moment 

 in Jupiter, and looking back, we should see what was happening 

 on this earth an hour ago, namely, when you were arriving at 

 this house. Now let us go in imagination to one of the nearest 

 fixed stars, and looking back we should see what was happening 

 10 years ago ; and, going still further to a far-off cluster, the 

 light would only just now be arriving there which started from 

 the earth at the time wlien man first appeared, and all the 

 events which have taken place from that remote time to the 

 present would, as time rolled on, reach there in exactly the 

 same succession as they have happened on this earth. 



Let us now come, in imagination, towards the earth, 

 from some far-off cluster of stars. If we traverse the 

 distance in one year, the whole of the events from the creation 

 of this world would appear before us, only thousands of times 

 quicker. Make the journey in a month, a day, an hour, a 

 second, or a moment of time, and all past events, from the 

 grandest to the most trivial, will be acted in an infinitesimal 

 portion of time. 



Do not these thoughts make clear some of those meta- 

 physical enigmas which confront us whenever we see great 

 injustice being perpetrated and crimes remaining undiscovered. 

 Let us but turn to any point of space and we shall find at each 

 point, according to its remoteness, the actual deeds being 

 enacted, whether for good or whether for evil, in fact it may be 

 said that throughout infinite space every event in past eternity 

 is now and will be for ever and ever indelibly recorded. A 

 crime committed hundreds or thousands of years ago may 

 never have been found out ; but for ever and ever there is and 

 will be to eternity depicted in space the actual living scene 

 from beginning to end. The criminal and his victim have alike 

 died and turned to dust ; the place and surroundings have 

 been swept away from the present here ; but for ever and ever 



