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useful account. But in tlie final state the whole system is 
in a condition of dead uniformity, lukewarm throughout, and 
no useful effect can be obtained from it. 
Now this principle blocks out a supposition in which it is 
possible that a certain class of minds might rest content — the 
supposition, namely, that the present order of things has 
existed as it is, saving merely certain periodic fluctuations, 
from a past eternity. There is something so mysterious in the 
idea of past time, when considered as the seat of past events, 
and not merely as a mathematical abstraction, that if the 
uniformitarian doctrine could be scientifically maintained many 
minds might be content to take refuge in the mystery and 
inquire no further. But we are bound to face the problem 
of the existence of the state of things we see around us as 
something that had a beginning, or, at any rate, something 
that was preceded by a state entirely different. 
There are some, indeed, who are content to take things as 
we find them, without recognising anything beyond the opera- 
tion of natural causes such as those which we investigate, 
and who boldly accept the conclusion to which the principle 
of the dissipation of energy considered by itself leads us, that 
the present order of things is slowly tending towards a goal 
of universal death. But if this conclusion is true as to the 
future, the present order of things ought to be capable of 
being deduced in like manner from what existed at any anterior 
time, however remote. If our formula were general, the variable 
expressing the time ought to be capable of being made negative 
as well as positive, and as large as we please. The question 
therefore arises. Can we account for the existence of what we 
see by mere evolution from a state the most remote that 
science enables us to conceive, understanding by evolution the 
result of the operation of natural causes, such as those that 
we can investigate, and excluding the operation of will, 
unless it be with reference merely to men and animals ? 
There are several reasons for thinking that our earth was at 
one time in a molten state. There are not wanting indications 
of a condition more remote from the present than even this. 
Associated with the stars, which the telescope reveals to us in 
such overwhelming numbers, are those remarkable objects, the 
nebulae, which have long excited the curiosity of astronomers. 
Laplace regarded them as remaining indications of a primeval 
condition of matter which he supposed to have existed in a 
state of diffusion, and to have given rise to the stars by con- 
centration under the influence of the attraction of gravitation. 
These luminous films were supposed to be portions of that 
diffused matter that had not yet condensed. But as telescopes 
