Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/641

Rh strongest. If twenty men be wrecked on a secluded island which will only support ten, which ten have a right to the produce of the island? Nature gives no voice, and the strongest take it. You may further ask me, Cui bono? what is the use of this disquisition? I should answer. If the views be true, it is always useful to know the truth. The greatest discoveries have appeared useless at the time. Kepler's discovery of the relations of the planetary movements appeared of no use at the time; no one would now pronounce it useless. I can, however, see much probable utility in the doctrine I have advocated. The conviction of the necessity of antagonism, and that without it there would be no light, heat, electricity, or life, may teach us (assuming free will) to measure effort by the probable result and to estimate the degree of probability. It may teach us not to waste our powers on fruitless objects, but to utilize and regulate this necessity of existence; for, if my views are correct, too much or too little is bad, and a due proportion is good (like many other useful things, it is best in moderation), to accept it rather as a boon than a bane, and to know that we can not do good without effort—that is, without some suffering.

I have spoken of antagonism as pervading the universe. Is there, you may ask, any limit in point of time or space to force? If there be so,manual correction? [sic] there must be a limit to antagonism. It is said that heat tends to dissipate itself, and all things necessarily to acquire a uniform temperature. This would in time tend practically, though not absolutely, to the annihilation of force and to universal death; but if there be evidence of this in our solar system and what we know of some parts of the universe, which probably is but little, is there no conceivable means of reaction or regeneration of active heat? There is some evidence of a probable zero of temperature for gases as we know them, i. e., a temperature so low that at it matter could not exist in a gaseous form; but passing over gases and liquids, if matter becomes solid by loss of heat, such solid matter would coalesce, masses would be formed, these would gravitate to each other and come into collision. It would be the nebular hypothesis over again. Condensation and collisions would again generate heat; and so on ad infinitum.

Collisions in the visible universe are probably more frequent than is usually supposed. New nebulæ appear where there were none before, as recently in the constellation of Andromeda. Mr. Lockyer, as I have said, considers that they are constant in the nebulae; and if there be such a number of meteorites as are stated to fall daily into the atmosphere of this insignificant planet, what numbers must there be in the universe? There must be a sort of fog of meteorites, and this may account, coupled with possibly some dissipation of light or change of it into other forces, for the smaller