In comparison with the length of time thus required to efface the
tiny individual atom, the entire cosmical career of our solar
system, or even that of the whole starry galaxy, shrinks into
utter nothingness. Whether we shall adopt the conclusion
suggested must depend on the extent of our speculative audacity.
We have seen wherein its probability consists, but in reasoning
upon such a scale we may fitly be cautious and modest in
accepting inferences, and our authors, we may be sure, would be
the first to recommend such modesty and caution. Even at the
dimensions to which our theorizing has here grown, we may for
instance discern the possible alternative of a simultaneous or
rhythmically successive generation and destruction of
vortex-atoms which would go far to modify the conclusion just
suggested. But here we must pause for a moment, reserving for a
second paper the weightier thoughts as to futurity which our
authors have sought to enwrap in these sublime physical
speculations.



PART SECOND.


UP to this point, however remote from ordinary every-day thoughts
may be the region of speculation which we have been called upon
to traverse, we have still kept within the limits of legitimate
scientific hypothesis. Though we have ventured for a goodly
distance into the unknown, we have not yet been required to
abandon our base of operations in the known. Of the views
presented in the preceding paper, some are wellnigh certainly