MACKIE — PHYSICAL AIND C0SM1CAL I'll EU O M EH A . 



170 



first place, we only imagined. When first men observed the sun, 

 they regarded the earth as a flat plain, over which the sun passed in 

 his heavenly course, and below which, at eve, he retired to rest. It 

 was not until many ages had elapsed that the world came to be 

 regarded as round, and even then it was long before the sun was con- 

 sidered as a fixed centre of the planetary system revolving round 

 him. 



By no nation of ancient times has astronomy been more advanced 

 than the Greeks. Not that the Greeks ever worked out much to a 

 proved result, but they were an imaginative people, and they invented 

 notions. If one theory or speculation was disproved, they invented 

 another ; and, hit or miss, they always seemed to have fresh ideas in 

 reserve. In some things astronomical, as in many other things that 

 the world believes in, we may be heretics, and we admit we do not 

 adhere to all the cosmical, physical, geological, and spiritual tenets of 

 the popular faiths. We may not entirely believe in the perfect sta- 

 bility of the universe ; we may doubt the eternal endurance of the sun's 

 bright rays ; and we may not quite acquiesce in the unchangeable per- 

 manence of the planetary orbits : in short, we do not believe in the 

 permanence of anything whatever in creation. All ever has been 

 change, and changeful all things ever will be. Diversity and change 

 are visible in the first created things of which any relics have been 

 left us. Diversity and change are palpable in every living creature 

 and every inanimate thing around. The foreshadowings of future 

 changes fall everywhere and on everything. Never, in all the Great 

 Past, do we find a ledge of stability on which to rest the mind's 

 weary flight; nor in all the future can we spy one solitary change- 

 less rock on which to seek repose. The mind, like the fabled flight 

 of the gorgeous birds of paradise, is doomed to endless effort, — from 

 birth to death to be ceaselessly on the wing. It is a fashion, 

 however, — and has been more so than it is now, — to talk about 

 the stability of the universe. Nothing is, ever was, or ever will be, 

 fixed in space. Not even the " fixed " stars, for we know they are all 

 in motion ; and the spectral analysis of the light of some, at any rate, 

 shows that those whose rays we can analyse are in a state of combus- 

 tion — burning like our own sun. Notwithstanding the sublime 

 edict for the creation of light in that Bible most people profess to 

 believe, we suspect strongly that most people regard the light of 

 our sun as eternal. If eternal in the future, why not eternal in the 

 Bast? If not eternal in the past, why eternal in the Future ? Not 

 that we think such arguments always hear. 



The mind naturally clings to the idea that creation began; and 

 the more educated, the more competent, the more reflective the mind 

 becomes, the more it clings to the conviction that creation did begin. 

 But having begun, having progressed, still progressing, who will dare 

 to think it shall ever cease ? Such a thought involves the extinction, 

 death of the Creator. Never! More glorious and more powerful 

 day by day, and age by age, the Almighty Strength may grow and in- 

 crease, but diminish, cease, — never ! But, back to our point Has 



