Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/413

Rh conclusion that in theory the end is in the infinite future, it seems certain that so far as the possibilities of human life are concerned there will be an end. When a battery circuit is closed, the equations show that the current never reaches the value which Ohm's law demands, although it continually approaches that value. Practically it reaches that limiting value in a very small fraction of a second, and this result is also in exact harmony with the equations.

Consider the mechanical work that would be required, to take the stellar universes of to-day, as raw material, in the condition to which they are tending, and put them in the condition in which they now are.

To take a minute sample of this work of creation: let us assume that the moon were in tangential contact with our earth. How much work would be required to separate them to their present distance from each other? A very simple calculation shows that to do this amount of work would require a million steam engines, of a thousand horse-power each, working continuously for between fifteen and sixteen million centuries.

Each molecule of matter is composed of a swarm of minute particles and the chemist has never been able to detect any variations in the composition of molecules of the same material. Each molecule is a complete closed system, vastly more complex than our planetary system. What shall we think of the work which is involved in the creation of a system of stellar universes, so vast that the human eye can never hope to see any limit to its extension in space, and composed of particles existing in endless duplication, which are so small that the human eye can not hope to see them?

And we must add to these wonders of the material world, the still greater mysteries which are involved in life and consciousness. We may devote a lifetime to the study of these things, and we shall then feel how insignificant is our knowledge of these revelations which we are continually receiving. And we are more and more impressed with the feeling that a being capable of producing such results, must differ in many respects from an oriental despot. We may become more and more inspired with a feeling of profound admiration and wonder, as we think on these things which our eyes behold. But we can not feel that such a being is anxiously seeking for flattery and praise. If we were to seek by such means to secure from him personal favors which we do not deserve, we should be paying him a very doubtful compliment. Such methods are not even considered proper at our city hall.

The highest type of man of which we can conceive is one who does not deserve any credit for shunning iniquity or for doing the works of righteousness. He does not refrain from murder in order to escape the gallows and the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. He never feels any temptation to commit murder. He does not murder and he