Here the question may be raised,--May not the world have existed from eternity? In the answer to this question there are several considerations requiring to be distinguished. First, science has no testimony to offer, inasmuch as it does not get beyond the area of laws now operating. Second, the testimony of science concerning the world as now existing is inconsistent with the supposition of its eternal existence. The matter which is constantly operated upon by energy distinct from itself, does not possess the property of self-subsistence; neither does the energy which is constantly undergoing change. Continual transition or change from one phase of existence, or set of relations, to another, is a mark of the not-abiding, an evidence of subjection to, and dependence on, what is beyond and above itself. The non-enduring, or ever-changing, is constantly pointing to the ever-enduring. Full understanding of the situation of things as discovered by science will produce a much deeper impression on the public mind than has yet been effected. The reasonableness of this expectation will readily appear, if only some few of the positions be placed conspicuously in view. It is of special consequence to note that science has in this direction _finished its work_, and reached its _ultimatum_, in demonstrating the physical impossibility of either increasing or diminishing the existing sum total of matter, or of energy. The conclusions are not such as can be regarded as provisional, liable to be overreached, modified, or enlarged, by what may afterwards be discovered. We are so much influenced at present,--and scientific men share in the experience, as well as others,--by the general and well-grounded expectation of the unceasing advance of science, that it is peculiarly easy in sight of a great general problem such as the origin and government of the world, to overlook the significance of ultimate conclusions in given directions. In this way, we too readily fall into the delusive tendency of regarding accredited conclusions as still hanging in a measure of uncertainty, or at least as having a dubious future before them, because they border upon the region of the unknown so far as science is concerned, or upon a realm of mystery, which science regards either with aversion, or with cherished determination of attack. In the present singularly favorable position of science, it is impossible for the public mind to escape this tendency; but it becomes only the more imperative to distinguish as occasion offers, those conclusions which are to be taken as final. This is of immense consequence as bearing upon general conceptions concerning the universe.