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and must have an end, the scientific principle of continuity- 
might seem to mean that the universe is eternal, and subsists 
in G-od, in the Pantheistic sense, as belonging to His Infinite 
and Eternal Being. But we learn, not only that the per- 
manence which it has in its Creator is consistent -with its being 
subject to cyclical changes, but that its order and its causa- 
tions, if left to themselves, must terminate ; which is the 
strongest conceivable proof that the origin of these is not in 
Nature itself. In fact, this law of dissipation is the very 
interpretation of the law of conservation that Religion as a 
whole requires. The first religious view of the existences of 
the universe is, “ He hath made them fast for ever and ever. 
He hath given them a law which shall not be broken ;; : * 
which is also the first scientific view. The profounder re- 
ligious view, the theosophic, is, “ They shall perish, but Thou 
shalt endure : as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they 
shall be changed : but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall 
have no end.^f Or, to use the singularly exact language 
of the Apostle Paul,J “The Creation was made subject to 
vanity ” ; that is, to instability and liability to change and 
decay ; and this (he adds) for some special purpose on the 
part of Him who made it subject ; as if Divine intelligence 
(as Science itself indicates) might have prevented this, if some 
higher purpose had not intervened. 
22. But it is especially in reference to causation that this 
new scientific development illustrates my present argument. 
It was impossible, until the transformation and conservation of 
energy were discovered, to explain clearly the strict and 
proper meaning of causation in the physical universe. Modern 
Science, however, enables us to interpret this very definitely 
indeed. If the cause is the energy A, the effect proper is the 
sum of the energies cq a 2 a 3 &c., into which, by impact or any 
other action, the original energy is transformed. For example, 
if one body impinges on another, the original energy is 
changed, — partly into those of the resulting motions, partly 
into heat. And the sum of these resulting energies is exactly 
equal to the original energies, and is its only proper effect. 
But suppose that the body struck is on the edge of a table or 
a precipice, and the two bodies fall on the ground, then their 
kinetic energies, when they strike the ground, are greatly in- 
creased ; but this is merely because the effect of the collision 
has been to convert potential energy into kinetic. Or suppose 
that the body struck contains some explosive substance, the 
* Ps. cxlviii. 6 ( Prayer Booh version). 
t Ps. cii. 26, 27. J Rom. viii. 20. 
