OUR PLACE AMONG INFINITIES. THE PAST AND FUTURE OF OUR EARTH.* "Ut his exordia primis Omnia, et ipse tener Mundi concreverit orbis. VIRGIL. THE subject with which I am about to deal is associated by many with questions of religion. Let me premise, however, that I do not thus view it myself. It seems to me impossible to obtain from science any clear ideas respecting the ways or nature of the Deity, or even respecting the reality of an Almighty personal God. Science deals with the finite though it may carry our thoughts to the infinite. Infinity of space and of matter occupying space, of time and of the processes with which time is occupied, and infinity of energy as necessarily implied by the infinities of matter and of the operations * This essay presents the substance of a lecture delivered in New York on April 3, 1874, being the first of a subsidiary series in which, of set purpose (and in accordance with the request of several esteemed friends), I dealt less with the direct teachings of astronomy, which had occupied me in a former series, than with ideas suggested by astronomical facts, and more particularly by the discoveries made during the last quarter of a century. affecting matter,—these infinities science brings clearly before us. For science directs our thoughts to the finites to which these infinites correspond. It shows us that there can be no conceivable limits to space or time, and though finiteness of matter or of operation may be conceivable, there is manifest incongruity in assuming an infinite disproportion between unoccupied and occupied space, or between void time and time occupied with the occurrence of events of what sort soever. So that the teachings of science bring us into the presence of the unquestionable infinities of time and of space, and the presumable infinities of matter and of operation,—hence, therefore, into the presence of infinity of energy. But science teaches us nothing about these infinities, as such. They remain none the less inconceivable, however clearly we may be. taught to recognise their reality. Moreover, these infinites, including the infinity of energy, are material infinities. Science tells us nothing of the infinite attributes of an Almighty Being; it presents to us no personal infinites, whether of Power, Beneficence, or Wisdom. Science may suggest some ideas on these points; though we perceive daily more and more clearly that it is unsafe to accept as her teaching ideas which commonly derive their colouring from our own prepossessions. And assuredly, as respects actual facts, Science in so far as she presents personal infinity to us at all, presents it as an inconceivable, like those other inconceivable infinities, with the finites corresponding to which her operations are alone directly |