The next objection, which is in part metaphysical, is founded on
the difficulty of ascribing any ultimate reality or potency to
forces diminishing through eternal time. Thus, against the
assumption that our universe is the result of material
aggregation progressing over eternal time, which involves the
primitive infinite separation of the particles, we may ask, what
force can have acted between particles sundered by infinite
distance? The gravitational force falling off as the square of
the distance, must vanish at infinity if we mean what we say when
we ascribe infinite separation to them. Their condition is then
one of neutral stability, a finite movement of the particles
neither increasing nor diminishing interaction. They had then
remained eternally in their separated condition, there being no
cause to render such condition finite. The difficulty involved
here appears to me of the same nature as the difficulty of
ascribing any residual heat to the sun after eternal time has
elapsed. In both cases we are bound to prolong the time, from our
very idea of time, till progress is no more, when in the one case
we can imagine no mutual approximation of the
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particles, in the other no further cooling of the body. However,
I will riot dwell further upon this objection, as it does not, I
believe, present itself with equal force to every mind. A reason
less open to dispute, as being less subjective, against the
aggregation of infinitely remote particles as the origin of our
universe, is contained in the physical objection.
In this objection we consider that the appearance presented by
our universe negatives the hypothesis of infinitely prolonged
aggregation. We base this negation upon the appearance of
simultaneity ~ presented by the heavens, contending that this
simultaneity is contrary to what we would expect to find in the
case of particles gathered from infinitely remote distances.
Whether these particles were endowed with relative motions or not
is unimportant to the consideration. In what respects do the
phenomena of our universe present the appearance of simultaneous
phenomena? We must remember that the suns in space are as fires
which brighten only for a moment and are then extinguished. It is
in this sense we must regard the longest burning of the stars.
Whether just lit or just expiring counts little in eternity. The
light and heat of the star is being absorbed by the ether of
space as effectually and rapidly as the ocean swallows the ripple
from the wings of an expiring insect. Sir William Herschel says
of the galaxy of the milky way:— "We do not know the rate of
progress of this mysterious chronometer, but it is nevertheless
certain that it cannot
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last for ever, and its past duration cannot be infinite." We do
not know, indeed, the rate of progress of the chronometer, but if
the dial be one divided into eternal durations the consummation
of any finite physical change represents such a movement of the
hand as is accomplished in a single vibration of the balance
wheel.
Hence we must regard the hosts of glittering stars as a
conflagration that has been simultaneously lighted up in the
heavens. The enormous (to our ideas) thermal energy of the stars
resembles the scintillation of iron dust in a jar of oxygen when
a pinch of the dust is thrown in. Although some particles be
burnt up before others become alight, and some linger yet a
little longer than the others, in our day's work the
scintillation of the iron dust is the work of a single instant,
and so in the long night of eternity the scintillation of the
mightiest suns of space is over in a moment. A little longer,
indeed, in duration than the life which stirs a moment in
response to the diffusion of the energy, but only very little. So
must an Eternal Being regard the scintillation of the stars and
the periodic vibration of life in our geological time and the
most enduring efforts of thought. The latter indeed are no more
lasting than
"... the labour of ants In the light of a million million of
suns."
But the myriad suns themselves, with their generations, are the
momentary gleam of lights for ever after extinguished.
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