Studies in the Out-Lying Fields of Psychic ScienceTuttle, Hudson
Religion
Studies in the Out-Lying Fields of Psychic Science
Tuttle, Hudson
Parapsychology
Incomprehensible as this force is, it is constantly diminishing, and
although the projection of meteors and hypothetical cosmical bodies may
prolong its action, the time must come when all its energy will be
dissipated into space; all bodies will have the same temperature, and as
there is no other source of energy, physical and vital phenomena will
cease, and the universe, bereft of living beings, will itself be dead.
A DEAD WORLD.--According to the most advanced views at present
entertained, this is the end of the career of the universe.
Balfour Stewart endorses this conclusion by saying: “We are induced to
generalize still further, and regard not only our own system, but the
whole material universe, when viewed with respect to serviceable energy,
as essentially evanescent, and as embracing a succession of physical
events which can not go on forever as they are.”
In stronger language Mr. Pickering says: “The final result, therefore,
would be that all bodies would assume the same temperature, there would
be no further source of energy; physical phenomena would cease, and the
physical universe would be dead. Such, at least, is the present view of
this stupendous question.”
In explanation of the origin of this energy, and the reason for its
loss, Mr. Stewart further says: “It is supposed that these particles
originally existed at a great distance from each other, and that, being
endowed with force of gravitation, they have gradually come together;
while in this process heat has been generated, just as if a stone were
dropped from the top of a cliff toward the earth.”
Thus the universe would become an equally heated mass, utterly worthless
as far as the work of production is concerned, since such production
depends on difference of temperature.
In other words, the universe becomes dead matter, wholly incapable of
supporting life, and so far as present science gives us any information,
must remain forever at rest.
The fact that such a conclusion has been reached should cause us to
pause in doubt of the correctness of the data leading thereto. It would
be more plausible were it shown how, at the end of the great cycle,
there was renewal of the lost energy, and return to the nebulous
beginning. Causation moves in cycles, and the most alarming
perturbations are balanced by forces operating in other directions, so
that the result is the preservation of order. Planets swing wide of
their orbits for a million years, getting further and further away, yet
the time comes when they return on a pathway carrying them as wide on
the other side.
This latest view of the universe by scientific thought, however
plausible its argument, or apparently logical its results, is proven by
the very logic of those results to be defective.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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