On these grounds I contend that the present gravitational
properties of matter cannot be supposed to have acted for all
past duration. Universal equilibrium of gravitating particles
would have been indestructible by internal causes. Perpetual
instability or evolution is alike unthinkable and contrary to the
phenomena of the universe of which we are cognisant. We therefore
turn from gravitating matter as affording no rational account of
the past. We do so of necessity, however much we feel our
ignorance of the nature of the unknown actions to which we have
recourse.
A prematerial condition of the universe was, we assume, a
condition in which uniformity as regards the average distribution
of energy in space prevailed, but neterogeneity and instability
were possible. The realization of that possibility was the
beginning we seek, and we today are witnesses of the train of
events involved in the breakdown of an eternal past equilibrium.
We are witnesses on this hypothesis, of a catastrophe possibly
confined to certain regions of space, but which is, to the
motions and configurations concerned, absolutely unique,
reversible to
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its former condition of potential by no process of which we can
have any conception.
Our speculation is that we, as spectators of evolution, are
witnessing the interaction of forces which have not always been
acting. A prematerial state of the universe was one of unfruitful
motions, that is, motions unattended by progressing changes, in
our region of the ether. How extended we cannot say; the nature
of the motions we know not; but the kinetic entities differed
from matter in the one important particular of not possessing
gravitational attraction. Such kinetic configurations we cannot
consider to be matter. It was _possible_ to construct matter by
their summation or linkage as the configuration of the crystal is
possible in the clear supersaturated liquid.
Duration in an ether filled with such motions would pass in a
succession of mere unfruitful events; as duration, we may
imagine, even now passes in parts of the ether similar to our
own. An endless (it may be) succession of unprogressive,
fruitless events. But at one moment in the infinite duration the
requisite configuration of the elementary motions is attained;
solely by the one chance disposition the stability of all must
go, spreading from the fateful point.
Possibly the material segregation was confined to one part of
space, the elementary motions condensing upon transformation, and
so impoverishing the ether around till the action ceased. Again
in the same sense as the
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stars are simultaneous, so also they may be regarded as uniform
in size, for the difference in magnitude might have been anything
we please to imagine, if at the same time we ascribe sufficient
distance sundering great and small. So, too;, will a dilute
solution of acetate of soda build a crystal at one point, and the
impoverishment of the medium checking the growth in this region,
another centre will begin at the furthest extremities of the
first crystal till the liquid is filled with loose feathery
aggregations comparable in size with one another. In a similar
way the crystallizing out of matter may have given rise, not to a
uniform nebula in space, but to detached nebula, approximately of
equal mass, from which ultimately were formed the stars.
That an all-knowing Being might have foretold the ultimate event
at any preceding period by observing the motions of the parts
then occurring, and reasoning as to the train of consequences
arising from these nations, is supposable. But considerations
arising from this involve no difficulty in ascribing to this
prematerial train of events infinite duration. For progress there
is none, and we can quite as easily conceive of some part of
space where the same Infinite Intelligence, contemplating a
similar train of unfruitful motions, finds that at no time in the
future will the equilibrium be disturbed. But where evolution is
progressing this is no longer conceivable, as being contradictory
to the very idea of progressive development. In this case
Infinite Intelligence