THE "UNSEEN UNIVERSE."
[TO THE KDrioa OF THE " SPEOTA.T011.1 SIR,—In your article on "The Unseen Universe" of November 13, as in all discussions which I have seen on that remarkable book, I do not observe any allusion to a consideration which seems to me to render invalid all assertions about the ultimate equilibrium of forces and death of organised worlds,—I mean the high probability that the universe is infinite in extent. That the forces of the Solar system will come after millions of ages to a state of balance seems likely, but what evidence is there that the -quantity of matter in the universe is finite, and therefore that we need only postulate a longer period of time for all matter to be congregated into one dead mass? Either the number of worlds, such as is the earth, is infinite, or if finite, there is in the space beyond their limits some other system or systems, the effect of which on our material world is inconceivable. In the first case, although a succession of changes is nearly certain, that succession will be infinite; in the second, we cannot give the slightest opinion as t3 the effect of unknown universes on our material universe; in neither case can we say more than that the arrangements which -we see about us must one day terminate, and give place to others; this, I suppose, we have all long known.
I am aware of some attempts lately made to explain how possibly space, in spite of our necessary ideas, may be finite, but those attempts do not go farther than to show that such might be the case, and I should think any unbiassed investigator could only look on them as ingenious sophistries, without a shadow of pro- bability that the hypothesis they favour is true. Neither does an infinite vacuum embracing the universe seem probable.—I am,
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