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even the sun must grow feeble and old in time, spend all his 
kinetic energy, and die, as his planets have died before him. 
While differing completely from Sir William as to the mode in 
which the final renovation of all things is to be accomplished, 
we are rejoiced to find that in the belief as to the fact of 
“ new heavens and a new earth,” we are agreed. “ Thus/-’ he 
states, “ we have the sober scientific certainty that heavens and 
earth shall f wax old as doth a garment/ and that this slow 
progress must gradually, by natural agencies which we see going 
on under fixed laws, bring about circumstances in which ' the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat/ With such views 
forced upon us by the contemplation of dynamical energy and 
its laws of transformation of dead matter, dark indeed would be 
the prospects of the human race if unillumined by that light 
which reveals ‘ new heavens and a new earth. 5 55 * 
39. The next assumption, and the last to be noticed, is 
assuredly the most startling of all, — that physical force may be 
converted into, or may persist as, mental force ; that motion 
may become thought or feeling. The other conversions 
may be understood, whether assented to or not, because 
there is some congruity between them : heat into light, 
electricity, or magnetism is plausible, even if not actual ; but this 
other is a conversion, at which the veriest revivalist must stand 
aghast. That the thoughts of a Paul, Plato, or Newton should 
be, after all, only modes of motion ; only the force that roasts 
a herring, doing a somewhat different work, is slightly 
humiliating. But this matters not : if it be true, we must gulp 
down, as best we can, our vanity, and swallow the unpalatable 
fact. But can a man be found who states it as a fact ? Yes, 
the Rev. Baring-Gould, although, we believe, a somewhat high 
Churchman, says it is a fact in his able work on the “ Origin and 
Development of Religious Belief.” About the last book in the 
world where we would have anticipated such a doctrine. He 
defines force as “ that which produces or resists motion / 5 but 
this definition he never adheres to, — evidently confounding force 
and motion, he blends Grove and Tyndall together so as to 
confuse both. He immediately adds, “ In physics, light, colour, 
heat, &c., are modes of force / 5 but he clearly means modes of 
motion. This is confirmed by what follows, where motion only is 
referred to. “Light is/ 5 he says, “a modification of force. 
According to the theory now universally accepted, it consists of a 
vibratory motion of the particles of a luminous body propagated 
in waves which flow in at the pupil of the eye, and, breaking 
Good Words , 1862, p» 606. 
