NOTE XI., page 118.

THE THEOLOGICAL INFERENCE FROM THE THEORY OF ENERGY.

A remarkably clear account of the chief theories as to the nature of matter will be found in Professor Tait's 'Lectures on some Recent Advances in Physical Science,' Lect. XII. In Thomson and Tait's 'Natural Philosophy,' Thomson's article on "The Age of the Sun's Heat" (Macmillan's Magazine,' March 1862), Tait's Thermodynamics,' Helmholtz's 'Correlation and Conservation of Forces,' Balfour Stewart's "Treatise on Heat,' &c., the facts and theorems which seem to establish that the material universe is a temporary system will be found fully expounded.

I am not acquainted with any more effective criticism of the argumentation by which the eminent physicists mentioned support their conclusion than that of the Rev. Stanley Gibson; and, although it seems to me not to come to very much, I feel bound in fairness to give it entire. After an exposition of the theory of energy, and of the reasoning founded on it by which we seem necessitated to infer that the universe tends at last to be a scene of rest, coldness, darkness, and death, he thus writes: "Is this reasoning, I ask, open to any objection? and if not, does it bear out the theological conclusion here sought to be rested upon it? In attempting to pass a verdict upon the question here raised, we cannot but feel, not only the grandeur of the subject before us, but also the imminent risk of its being affected by considerations unknown to us. We certainly need to judge with diffidence. Perhaps the first question which

arises is, Are we to take the material universe to be infinite? If it be, and if its stores of energy, potential and kinetic, have no limit, then it is no longer clear that the final stage of accumulation need have been reached, however long its past history may have been; nor yet, I may add, that it would ever be reached in the future. I may be reminded that at present, at all events, only finite accumulations have arisen, and that this is not consistent with an accumulation through a past eternity. But this objection assumes that there never could have been more than some assignable degree of diffusion of matter. Why should this be? If at any past period there was a certain degree of diffusion, why may there not have been a greater degree at an earlier period? And if so, why may not this integrating, as I should propose to call it, have been going on for ever?

"If, on the other hand, the universe be finite, then, according to the principle of the conservation.of energy, reflection of heat must take place from its boundaries, and there may be reconcentration of energy on certain points, according to the form of the bounding surface.

"A second inquiry arises thus. If it be impossible to imagine the present history of the universe continued backward indefinitely under its present code of laws, are we therefore obliged to assume some anomalous interference? We speak, of course, of these laws as they are known to us. Might there not be others, yet unknown, that would solve the difficulty?

"The history of the universe, as immediately known to us, offers as its leading feature the falling together of small discrete bodies in enormous numbers and with great velocities, or the condensation of very rare and diffused gases.

Hence the formation of bodies, some of

cess.

vast size, others smaller, but all originally greatly heated. This process seems to point to an earlier state of things, in which such accumulations of matter, though sparse even now, were far less common-a state in which, to use the expression which I have proposed, matter was far less integrated. It is quite true that the great change of which we thus obtain a glimpse is not a recurring proIt is not therefore fitted for eternal repetition and continuance. But it is a bold thing to say that this earlier state of things may not have followed from one still older by a natural process, and this again from one before, and so on through an indefinite regression. We have seen what an important part the ether plays in the present process of the dissipation of energy. The existence of that ether, the separation of matter into two main forms, may have sprung out of some previous condition of things wholly unknown to us. And so also there may be forms and stores of energy as yet unknown.

"Mr Proctor, in his work on the sun, has cautioned us how we speculate on the physical constitution of that body, whilst we must feel uncertain how far the physical laws, which we observe here, will hold under the vastly different conditions obtaining there. He supports his caution by referring to cases in which what had been confidently thought by many to be safe generalisations have been shown to fail in novel circumstances. Thus it was thought that the passage of a gas from the gaseous into the liquid form was always an abrupt change. But it has been found that carbonic acid gas can be made to pass into the liquid state by insensible gradations. Again, it had been thought that gas, when incandescent, always gave light whose spectrum was broken into thin lines; but it has been shown that hydrogen, under high pres

sure, may be made to give forth light with a continuous spectrum. Now surely this caution, which Mr Proctor enters in the case of which he speaks, might still more wisely be entered when we come to consider a state of things so novel, so remote from our experience as that which attended the origin of the universe, or rather of that state of the universe with which we are acquainted. We certainly must not be in haste to conclude that because the laws of nature, as they are known to us, will not explain what must have taken place at some very remote period, therefore those events must have been altogether anomalous."- Religion and Science, pp. 71-74.

Unless

It is here virtually-perhaps I may say expresslyconceded that if the matter and energy of the universe be finite and located in infinite space, the reasoning by which the theorists of thermodynamics maintain that perpetual motion is incompatible with the transformation and dissipation of energy, cannot be resisted. matter and energy be infinite or space finite, the known laws of nature must eventually abolish all differences of temperature and destroy all life-this is what is admitted. To me it seems to amount to yielding all that is demanded; because whoever seriously considers the difficulties involved in believing either matter infinite or space finite must, I am persuaded, come to regard it as equivalent to an acknowledgment that the world will have an end and must have had a beginning.

Zoellner, in his ingenious work on the nature of comets, endeavours to avoid this inference by recourse to the hypotheses of Riemann and others as to a space of n dimensions. In such a space the shortest line would be a circle, and a body might move for ever, yet de

scribe a limited course. Matter, space, and inferentially time, would, in fact, according to this hypothesis, be both finite and infinite. It is to be hoped that few persons in the full possession of their intellects will ever accept a view like this. The imaginary geometry may be thoroughly sound reasoning, but it is reasoning from erroneous premises, and it can only be useful so long as it is remembered that its premises are erroneous. They have only to be assumed to be true to experience and reality, and all science must be set aside in favour of nonsense. Logic ought not, however, to be confounded with truth.

Caspari fancies that by representing the universe as not a mechanism but an organism, he preserves the right to believe it eternal. But surely the laws of heat apply to organisms no less than to mechanisms.

In an article concerning the cosmological problem, published in the first number of the 'Vierteljahrsschrift f. Wissenschaftliche Philosophie,' Professor Wundt rejects the theory in question on extremely weak grounds. "It is easy to see," he says, "that, in the case of the English physicists at least, the desire of harmonising the data of the exact sciences with theological conceptions has not been without influence on this limitation of the universe." The rashness displayed by such a statement, and the utter want of evidence or probability for it, as regards men like Thomson or Tait, need not be pointed out. Besides, Clausius and Helmholtz are neither English physicists nor likely to be influenced by theological conceptions. Will it be believed that, notwithstanding this charge against others, Professor Wundt's own reasoning is not scientific, but merely anti-theological ? Such is the case. If the Thomsonian theory be admitted, a place is left for creative action, for miracle; and this,