Wheresoever we turn the prospect is the same.
If we gaze upon the heavens we discern immeasurable spaces sprinkled with
globules of matter, to which our earth seems to be more or less akin, but
all plunging, apparently, both furiously and aimlessly, from out of an
infinite past to an equally immeasurable future.
Whence this material mass comes, or what its wild flight portends, we
neither know nor could we, probably, comprehend even were its secret
divulged to us by a superior intelligence, always conceding that there be
such an intelligence, or any secret to disclose. These latter speculations
lie, however, beyond the scope of my present purpose. It suffices if
science permits me to postulate (a concession by science which I much
doubt if it could make) that matter, as we know it, has the semblance of
being what we call a substance, charged with a something which we define
as energy, but which at all events simulates a vital principle resembling
heat, seeking to escape into space, where it cools. Thus the stars, having
blazed until their vital principle is absorbed in space, sink into
relative torpor, or, as the astronomers say, die. The trees and plants
diffuse their energy in the infinite, and, at length, when nothing but a
shell remains, rot. Lastly, our fleshly bodies, when the union between
mind and matter is dissolved, crumble into dust.
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