Intimately connected with the subject we have discussed is the
question of the age of our system, if age it can be said to have.
In considering this question, the simplest hypothesis to suggest
itself is that the universe has existed forever in some such form
as we now see it; that it is a self-sustaining system, able to go
on forever with only such cycles of transformation as may repeat
themselves indefinitely, and may, therefore, have repeated
themselves indefinitely in the past. Ordinary observation does not
make anything known to us which would seem to invalidate this
hypothesis. In looking upon the operations of the universe, we may
liken ourselves to a visitor to the earth from another sphere who
has to draw conclusions about the life of an individual man from
observations extending through a few days. During that time, he
would see no reason why the life of the man should have either a
beginning or an end. He sees a daily round of change, activity and
rest, nutrition and waste; but, at the end of the round, the
individual is seemingly restored to his state of the day before.
Why may not this round have been going on forever, and continue in
the future without end? It would take a profounder course of
observation and a longer time to show that, notwithstanding this
seeming restoration, an imperceptible residual of vital energy,
necessary to the continuance of life, has not been restored, and
that the loss of this residuum day by day must finally result in
death.
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