resources of which we know nothing. There are all the stars with their vast stores of energy. Possibly they are infinite in number. Progress ceasing just here may flash out in renewed brilliancy elsewhere. Who knows what is in store for the future, when the present seemingly chaotic arrangement of the stars gives way to vastly higher organized systems of interacting bodies, in whose light life shall flourish eternally?
Well, all this we can all fancy as well as our scientific neighbors. Nobody would call such dreams scientific, but they are logically possible dreams, and they are very beautiful. But they have one terrible negative consideration against them. This progress is either conceived as having gone on through infinite past time, or else it has no genuine significance for the true nature of the universe. A world that has now grown, now decayed, that has sometimes progressed, sometimes become worse, is a world in which progress is an accident, not an essential feature. But now, if progress has gone on through infinite time, it has so gone on as to make possible, after all this infinite time, just the misery and imperfection that we see about us. Let us remember that fact. This poor life of ours is in the supposed case the outcome of infinite ages of growth. That must be our hypothesis, if we are to cling to progress as an essential truth about the world. Very well then, all our temptations, all our weakness, our misery, our ignorance — the infinite past ages have ended in fashioning them. Our diseases, our fears, and our sins — are they perfect ? If not, then what
