into heat, in
which there will be no different states but only the most uniform
distribution, in which also all life and all movement will cease and the
world-clock itself will come to a standstill.

How does this fit in with the idea of independence and self-sufficiency?
How could the world-clock ever wind itself up again to the original state
of tension which was simply there as if shot from a pistol "in the
beginning"? Where is the everlasting impressive uniformity and constancy
of the world? How does it happen that the world-clock has not long ago
come to a standstill? For even if the original sum of potential energy is
postulated as infinite, the eternity that lies behind us is also infinite.
And so one infinity swallows another. And innumerable questions of a
similar kind are continually presenting themselves.

The "Contingency" of the World.

But we need not dwell in the meantime on these and the many other
difficulties and riddles presented by our cosmological hypothesis. However
these may be solved, a general consideration will remain--namely, that
whether the world is governed by law or not, whether it is sufficient unto
itself or not, there _is_ a world full of the most diverse phenomena, and
there _are_ laws. Whence then have both these come? Is it a matter of
course, is it quite obvious that they should exist at all, and that they
should be exactly as they are? We do not here appeal without further
ceremony to the saying "everything must have a cause, therefore the world
also." It is not absolutely correct. For instance, if the world were so
constituted that it would be impossible for it not to exist, that the
necessity for its existence and the inconceivability of its non-existence
were at once explicit and obvious, then there would be no sense in
inquiring after a cause. In regard to a "necessary" thing, if there were
any such, we cannot ask, "Why, and from what cause does this exist?" If it
was necessary, that implies that to think of it as not existing would be
ridiculous, and logically or metaphysically impossible. Unfortunately
there are no "necessary" things, so that we cannot illustrate the case by
examples. But there are at least necessary truths as distinguished from
contingent truths. And thus some light may be brought into the matter for
the inexpert. For instance, a necessary truth is contained in the
sentence, "Everything is equal to itself," or, "The shortest distance
between two p