this is not the case. Is it less reverent to regard the universe as an illimitable avenue that leads up to God, than to look upon it as a limited area bounded by an impenetrable wall, which, if we could only pierce it, would bring us at once into the presence of the Eternal?

In fine, we do not hesitate to assert that the visible universe cannot comprehend the whole works of God, because it had its beginning in time, and will also come to an end. Perhaps, indeed, it forms only an infinitesimal portion of that stupendous whole which is alone entitled to be called THE UNIVERSE.

87. We thus see that the extreme scientific, as well as the old theological school, have erred in their conclusions, because they have neither of them loyally followed the principle of Continuity. The theologians, regarding matter and its laws with contempt, have without scruple assumed that frequent invasions of these laws could constitute a tenable hypothesis. On the other hand, the extreme school of science, when they were brought by the principle of Continuity into such a position that the next logical step should have been the realisation of the unseen, failed to take it, and have suffered grievously in con

sequence.

88. It remains now, before concluding this chapter, to apply the principle of Continuity to the problem we have in hand.

There are three conceivable suppositions with reference to individual immortality. It may be regarded as a transference from one grade of being to another in the present visible universe; or secondly, as a transference from the visible universe to some other order of things intimately connected with it; or lastly, we may conceive it to repre

sent a transference from the present visible universe to an order of things entirely unconnected with it.

89. This last hypothesis may however be very speedily disposed of if we are to maintain the principle of Continuity. We have seen that one of the requisites for existence is an organ connecting the individual with the past. Now, were we to suppose a transference of living beings from the present visible universe to an order of things entirely unconnected with it in other respects, this would be a manifest breach of the law of Continuity. Imagine the utter confusion into which this present uni-* verse would be plunged, if a set of inhabitants were transferred into it having organs connecting them with a past existence in an entirely different universe. A confusion precisely similar would be occasioned by carrying out a transfer according to the hypothesis in question; so that we are able at once to reduce our suppositions to two: the first implying a transference from one grade to another of the visible universe, and the second a transference from the visible universe to some other order of things intimately connected with it.

90. In what precedes, we have argued by anticipation that the present visible universe will become effete; but in the following chapters it will be necessary to maintain this assertion by a minute examination of those laws which represent the course of things pursued in the present universe. In other words, we must settle the fitness or unfitness of the present visible universe before we proceed to discuss our second hypothesis.

91. But whether the transfer be supposed to take place in the visible universe, or from it to another intimately connected with it, the subject in either case is one on which we

may legitimately employ our reasoning faculties. So far indeed is the subject from being one which it will be utterly and for ever useless to discuss, that it becomes our duty as well as our privilege to make the attempt, in the perfect trust that time will inevitably bring truth with it. We think that this has been too much overlooked by those whom we may term the moderate school of scientific thinkers. Not denying immortality, they have yet shrunk from all attempts to investigate its conditions. We are in hopes that a perusal of this volume will lead these writers to see that the subject is one which may be profitably discussed.

CHAPTER III.

THE PRESENT PHYSICAL UNIVERSE.

. . . οἱ οὐρανοὶ ῥοιζηδὸν παρελεύσονται, στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα λυθήσονται, καὶ γῆ καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔργα κατακαήσεται.-Πετρού Β'. γ'.

"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;

And, like this insubstantial pageant, faded,

Leave not a rack behind."-SHAKESPEARE, Tempest.

"All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,

The sun himself must die

Before this mortal shall assume

His immortality."-CAMPBELL.

92. HAVING in the last chapter briefly indicated the nature of the proposition which we intend to bring forward, we must next study, as a preliminary to further discussion, what science tells us about the present physical universe: what are the general laws to which it is now subject; when and what must have been its beginning; when and what will be its inevitable end.

We have been driven into becoming accustomed to the

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phrase, "the material universe," which is generally used in a sense absolutely identical with that which we have chosen as the title of this chapter. We shall soon see that the term is a very inapt one, inasmuch as matter is (though may sound paradoxical to say so) the less important half of the material of the physical universe.

it

In the present chapter we shall still further restrict ourselves by omitting, as far as possible, any reference to life (even in its lowest aspect), and we likewise defer to a future chapter our account of the more reasonable speculations which have been advanced with regard to the intimate structure of matter and ether.

93. It is only within the last thirty or forty years that there has gradually dawned upon the minds of scientific men the conviction that there is something besides matter or stuff in the physical universe, which has at least as much claim as matter to recognition as an objective reality, though, of course, far less directly obvious to our senses as such, and therefore much later in being detected. So long as men spoke of light, heat, electricity, etc., as imponderables, they merely avoided or put aside the difficulty.

When they attempted to rank them as matter,—heat, for instance, as caloric,-they at once fell into errors, from which a closer scrutiny of experimental results would assuredly have saved them. The idea of substance or stuff as necessary to objective existence very naturally arises from ordinary observations on matter; and as there could be little doubt of the physical reality of heat, light, etc., these were in early times at once set down as matter. Fire, in fact (including, it is to be presumed, everything which involved either heat or flame, real or apparent), was in early times one of the four so-called elements.