there may be limits to space, not merely limits to occupied space, but limits to space itself, as though by closing his eyes the traveller, oppressed by the vastness of the plain surface over which he voyaged, should endeavor to convince his mind that the end of his journey was close by him. "Practically infinite," as Huxley has expressed it, or absolutely infinite, space is (to all intents and purposes) infinite for us. But space and time are too intimately associated for us to imagine that space can be infinite and time finite; or that if occupied space grows even under our survey until we recognize that it is as infinite as space itself, time occupied by the occurrence of events (of whatever sort) can be otherwise than infinite too. pears the thought that any instrument | have attempted, by rejecting the elemenman can fashion can penetrate the real tary conceptions of space, to show that profundities of the universe! Seeing, as we do now, how utterly men's ideas of what the stars are fell short of the truth, and how more inadequate still were their conceptions of the real number of the stars when they trusted only to the natural eye, we should very ill have learned the lesson their errors teach us, if we in turn fell into the mistake of supposing that the telescopic eye can reveal more to us than the merest corner of the universe. Even of the universe of stars that is of the system of suns whereof our sun is a member this may be said. But how unlikely, how incredible, indeed, is it, that there is but one system of suns, but one galaxy? The star-clouds may not be outlying galaxies, as the Herschels supposed. It seems clear that they are but parts of our own galaxy, whose grandeur and complexity are far greater than had been supposed. But who can doubt that beyond the limits of our own galaxy, beyond spaces bearing probably something like the same proportion to the size of the galaxy that the interplanetary spaces bear to the size of our earth, come other galaxies, some like, some unlike, our own, some as large, some smaller, but many doubtless far larger than the glorious system of suns which appears infinite to our conceptions? "As thus we tilt"-in imagination over an abysmal world, a mighty cry arises that systems more mysterious, worlds more billowy other heights, other depths are coming, are nearing, are at hand." Who can wonder if from these awful depths men have turned in weariness of soul, nay almost in affright, as when the Alpine traveller, peering over some fog-enshrouded precipice, sees down, as the mist rolls past, to deeper and deeper abysses, until he is compelled to turn from the contemplation of the ever-growing depth ! It is not simply the vast in which men have learned to believe, not mere immensity, but the mystery of absolute infinity. On all sides our island home is surrounded by a shoreless sea of space. So great has been the oppression of this mystery of infinity that men like Helmholtz, Clifford and others, 66 If we could reasonably, doubt this we should yet find evidence as clear in this direction as with reference to space itself, though not so obvious to the senses. Every one can understand the evidence of vast size presented by the universe as science is able to survey it; and every one can see how the constant growth of the known universe points to the real universe as to all intents and purposes infinite. But not every one can understand the evidence of the antiquity of the universe, or the certain promise which its features afford of a duration in the future which must be, like the duration of the universe in the past, practically infinite. But even to those who cannot see the force of the evidence on these points, it is obvious so soon as the idea has once been presented - just as obvious as is the idea of infinite absolute space that time itself, occupied by events or not so (if this could be imagined) must be absolutely infinite. The occurrence of events might perhaps be spoken of (not conceived very readily) as having an absolute beginning and proceeding onwards to an absolute end, this island of occupied time being lost in a shoreless ocean of void time; but none can reasonably speak even of a be ginning or an ending of absolute time, far less conceive either thought. Space then and time present themselves to our conceptions, and with the progress | ideas of those days by what men said, it and laws as implying some plan or purpose; though also, it must be admitted, the nature of such plan or purpose seemed to the wiser sort the more inscrutable the more closely its workings were studied. "Canst thou by searching find out God?” he drew the wrong lesson from it; "canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?" Another, who took a wiser view of nature, yet in this spoke the same doctrine: " Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out." Now, in the days when the earth was thought to be central and all-important in space, central also and all-important in regard to time, a little knowledge—as said one, who so far spoke truth, though limited and as imperfect was possessed by men respecting the action of natural laws. They knew for example that animals, including man, pass through certain stages of development. They saw that the trees of the forest spring from seeds. They could trace further the growth and development of families of animals, the spread of vegetation over countries and continents; the formation, on the one hand, of tribes, nations, races, and species; on the other, of the various forms of vegetable development. But such knowledge, and all the ideas associated with such knowledge, were limited within And in the first place I would ask the range of space and time over which whether it is not naturally to be expected alone in those days men were able to ex- that this growth in our ideas respecting tend their survey. In fine, men recog-evolution should have followed (if it did nized processes of development taking place upon the earth, and during her continuance as an inhabited world; they did not look outside either the region of space or the period of time which they had learned to regard as if they were in reality space and all time. all In our day, with the extension of men's recognition of the vastness of space and time, there has come a widening also of their conceptions respecting the extent of the domain of natural law as well in time as in space. not accompany) the growth of our conceptions of the extent and duration of the domain of evolution. If it had so chanced that neither research nor observation had availed to extend our recognition of the operation of natural laws after Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton had estabIn passing I may note that hitherto Ilished the true theory of the solar system have not heard that in the good old days might not analogy alone have sufficed to - when the earth was the world and her convince men that the larger and longerlife (very much under-estimated) all time lasting universe shown them by science -men who studied processes of develop was governed by wider and more permament or evolution such as are plain and nent laws than they had hitherto recogobvious to all were regarded as necessa- nized? rily rejecting the belief in some power at the back of observed phenomena. On the contrary, so far as we can judge of the But the Copernican theory had not been established without the demonstration of a law so general and far-reaching that 2 We know indeed that such an objection was urged against Newton's doctrines in Newton's day and for many years after. Very probably if the theory of gravitation had not been established to demonstration by Newton and such followers as Laplace, Lagrange, and others, we might hear the objection even now (we hear it still among the ignorant, but of course it has entirely died out save with them). When the theory of universal gravitation became thoroughly established, it was found to be in perfect accordance with the idea of a universal lawgiver. Men presently began to wonder, indeed, how it could ever have been supposed that the laws of the universe must of necessity be limited in their range of action whether in when it had once been established no new | from particle to particle throughout the recognition of law could be reasonably whole extent of the universe. Of a law regarded as startling or unexpected. such as this, if of any law at all, it might Newton had proved that the quality of have been said that it seems to negative gravity pertains to every particle of mat- the action of a special ruler. It was said ter in all places and in every condition, of late respecting the general doctrine of and that it extends according to definite development, that it sets the Almighty law to an infinite distance. At least, he on one side in the name of universal evohad proved these properties so far as they lution; with at least as much force it might can be proved. Every possible test had have been said of the doctrine of attrac shown that the particles of solid, liquid, tion, that it sets the Almighty on one side and vaporous matter equally possess (ac- in the name of universal gravitation. cording to their mass) the quality of gravity. Every possible test had shown that not the external particles of suns and planets, or these in greater degree, but every particle, to the very centre of the largest and most massive globe, possesses in the same degree (according to its mass) this mysterious, all-pervading power. And lastly, every possible test applied to the movements of the heavenly bodies had shown that the force of gravity exerted thus by each particle diminishes as the square of the distance increases, but suffers no further diminution: so that the tiniest particle in the sun exerts, at least throughout the domain of the solar system, even to the orbit of Neptune, the force due to its mass and to the distance of any other particle on which its influ-space or in time. ence is exerted. In this inquiry the vast Yet when the Newton of our own time mass of the sun stands us in good stead. advanced a theory which bears to biology Were we only able to consider the attrac- (so far as is possible in matters so unlike) tion exerted by a single particle, or by a the same relation that the law of gravity small mass at great distances, the small-bears to astronomy, a theory bringing ani. ness of the resulting attraction would mal and vegetable life under the domain foil any attempt to measure its amount of laws practically universal, an unreasonwith precision. But we can consider the ing fear possessed many lest this natural total energy of the solar mass, exceeding sequel of our growing knowledge of the three hundred and fifty thousand times universe should alter men's conceptions the mass of the sun, at the distance of of the government of the universe. In Neptune; in other words, we can examine space the universe was seen to be infi the combined attractive force of a gather-nite, and in duration infinite; a law infiing of many millions of millions of particles, and having measured that, we can divide it in accordance with the known relative mass of the sun, and so ascertain whether each particle of the sun does its due work at the distance of Neptune. When we thus learn that there is not the slightest trace, even over that enormous Note that we use the word indefinite, range, of any diminution of energy be- not infinite, in speaking of the operation yond that belonging to the law of gravity of the law of biological evolution. The as determined for a small distance (such biologist cannot test the operation of this as the moon's), we are justified in assum-law so widely as the astronomer can test ing that at a distance twice, thrice, many the operation of the law of gravity, for times as great as Neptune's the law of gravity holds unchanged. We have then a law whose action is to all intents and purposes universal; it operates in every particle of the universe, and it extends nitely wide in its operation had been found to govern all movements within the universe, yet the recognition of a new law, also indefinitely wide in its operation, instead of being regarded as natural and appropriate, was looked upon with disfavor and disapproval. the simple reason that the biological law relates chiefly to time, while the astronomical law relates chiefly to space, and we can look with ever increasing range of vision into depths of space which are practically infinite, while we cannot look with equal confidence into remote depths of past or future time. For the same reason that men even to this day accept more confidently the enlarged ideas of science with regard to space than the extended ideas with regard to time, which logically should be accepted with equal readiness, the theory of evolution must ever remain incomplete as compared with the theory of universal attraction. No one could urge with much effect, in these days, that perhaps beyond the range of the telescope the law of gravity which within that range (and far beyond the limits of the solar system *) we see in operation, may be replaced by some other law entirely different in its mode of action. But the opponent of the doctrine of biological evolution may, without much fear of effective reply, express the belief that before some definite epoch in the past, not evolution, but some other law or process, was at work in the fashioning of the various forms of animal and vegetable life. In dealing with space no one can reasonably say, that in whatever direction one may suppose a line extended, a limit must at length be reached beyond which we cannot, even in imagination, extend our survey. But in dealing with time it is not considered unreasonable, but, on the contrary, eminently reasonable, to say that far back as we may please to carry the process of evolution we must at length come to a beginning, before which there was not only no evolution of life but no life to pass through processes of evolu tion. Here, indeed, science assents in some degree to the objectors, if science may not be said to have given birth to the objection. Science has shown that with suitable care to remove or destroy all germs of life from a given space, no life will appear within that space-in other words, that so far as scientific observation extends, the generation of life is never spontaneous. Equally science might assert that, so far as scientific observation extends, the generation of a system of orbs like the solar system does not occur spontaneously under any suitable test conditions. If a smile be excited by the thought of the vast difference of scale between any test conditions for the forma tion of a solar system and the conditions under which our own solar system may Binary, triple, and multiple star systems tell us of the operation of gravity in the star depths; and so do the movements of stars in space, though not so obvi ously. have come into being, let it be noted that there must be a kindred difference between any experiments as to the possibility of spontaneous generation and the only conditions under which we can imagine spontaneous generation to have occurred. There is some difference, we submit, between a small flask with a few ounces of hay infusion, to which no air has been admitted, which has not been submitted to a number of life-destroying processes, and a young planet teeming with material vitality, still hot with its primeval fires, still palpitating from the throes which (during countless ages) had preceded and accompanied its birth. No experiment or observation man has ever made or can ever make, can suffice to show that the spontaneous generation of living forms. then was either possible or impossible. But men may continue, if it gives the many comfort, to believe that just then the uniform action of law was interrupted, that just at that stage the mechanism of the universe was found to be imperfect. But while in this sense and to this degree the law of biological evolution differs from the law of universal attraction, the work of Darwin must yet be regarded as akin to that of Newton, in that it extends indefinitely our conceptions of the range of natural laws. As Newton showed men all the millions of families of worlds throughout the universe moving in ac cordance with the law of attraction, so Darwin has shown us all the myriads of races which have inhabited the earth brought into due relation to their surroundings by the operation of the law of evolution. And as the law of gravity was but a wider law, including such laws as Copernicus and Kepler had recognized, which in turn severally included many minor laws, so it should be noticed that the law of biological evolution includes all those minor laws of development which men had recognized for ages without entertaining the unreasonable thought that such laws necessarily implied the nonexistence of a lawgiver. To those alike who are pained and to those who rejoice at what they regard as the irreligious tendency of the doctrine of biological evolution, the same answer may be made: it is only when we try to create arbitrary limits of space or of time, and to set these as bounds to the operation of the laws of nature, that any such tendency can be imagined. Those who have admitted the growth of a tree, a forest, or a flora, of an animal, a race, or a fauna, according to natural laws, have to ac R. A. PROCTOR. knowledge nothing new in kind, however | truth, "End is there none to the universe different it may be in degree, in admitting of God; lo, also there is no beginning." that there is development on the larger scale as well as on the smaller, not even though they should have to admit that such development takes place throughout all space and all time. The difficulty in dealing with one thought is not greater than that which oppresses us in considering the other; both difficulties are over From Temple Bar. ROBIN. CHAPTER XXVII. BEFORE Robin and Mr. Blunt met again Christopher and he had come to a very decided understanding, the result of which was a promise that Mr. Veriker's name should be if possible avoided, or if spoken of before his daughter, should be respected. Accustomed to tacit submission from his son, Mr. Blunt was not a little surprised to find that in this first measure of swords between them, Christopher was decidedly the victor. It had not struck him so much in the midst of his loud talking and bluster; but after, when he reflected, his sense showed him that he had been decidedly worsted. whelming, both infinite. If we could BY MRS. PARR, AUTHOR OF “ADAM AND EVE” evade the conception of the infinite in space or in time, we might be content to imagine limits to the operation of law. But we can neither evade the conception nor grasp it. As Pasteur has well said, quite recently, "When the question is asked, 'What is there beyond the starry vault?' it is useless to answer, 'Beyond lies unlimited space.' When we ask what lies beyond the far-off time when what we see around us began to be, and what lies beyond the remote future when it will cease to exist, of what use the answer, 'Beyond lie eternities of past and coming time'? Nobody understands these words. He who proclaims the existence of an Infinite and nobody can evade it-asserts more of the supernatural in that affirmation than exists in all the miracles of all the religions; for the notion of the Infinite has the twofold character of being irresistible and incomprehensible. When this notion seizes on the mind, there is nothing left but to bend the knee. In that anxious moment all the springs of intellectual life threaten to snap, and one feels near being seized by the sublime madness of Pascal. Everywhere I see the inevitable expression of the Infinite in the world. By it the supernatural is seen in the depths of every heart." "If I don't take care," he said, "between the two of them I shall be made a complete puppet of my word won't be valued more than that," and he snapped his fingers figuratively. During the whole day the thought stayed by him, and kept him silent and brooding, so that Robin and Christopher were but little troubled by his company. "Now you mustn't think any more about it," the good fellow said, fearing that Robin was still dwelling on the domestic misadventure; and observing that, though she assured him she had completely forgotten the matter, her eyes were heavy and all she said came by effort, he rejoiced when rather late in the evening the servant announced Mr. Cameron, who had come, as he frankly told them, to see Mrs. Blunt. 66 Perhaps I ought," he said, "to make some apology for the lateness of the hour, but the truth is that the rectory people are coming to-morrow, and I wanted to steal a march upon them." It is as thus viewed that the laws of development brought before us during the last quarter of a century—not as novelties, for in conception they are of vast antiquity, but new in the sense that now for the first time they are presented as proven —are so solemn and impressive when rightly understood. As the discoveries of astronomy were first steps towards infinite space, steps carrying us far enough upon the road to show that of necessity it must be infinite, as the study of the movements of the heavenly bodies tells us unmistakably of infinite time, so the recognition of development tells us that, as we might have anticipated, the domain of law is limitless alike in space and in time. With the angel in Richter's The untidy run-wild little Spencers had dream, Science, in the doctrine of ever- touched a chord of sympathy with her lasting evolution, proclaims the solemn | own neglected childhood. "What, the Temples!" exclaimed Robin. "Are they coming? I'm so glad! I'm looking forward to seeing the Temples. To-day at church I so liked the look of the children with them!" |