This mechanistic tendency of the intellect coheres with the well-known
formula, "Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is
transformed"--a formula by means of which it has been sought to
interpret the ambiguous principle of the conservation of energy,
forgetting that practically, for us, for men, energy is utilizable
energy, and that this is continually being lost, dissipated by the
diffusion of heat, and degraded, its tendency being to arrive at a
dead-level and homogeneity. That which has value, and more than value,
reality, for us, is the differential, which is the qualitative; pure,
undifferentiated quantity is for us as if it did not exist, for it does
not act. And the material Universe, the body of the Universe, would
appear to be gradually proceeding--unaffected by the retarding action of
living organisms or even by the conscious action of man--towards a state
of perfect stability, of homogeneity (_vide_ Brunhes, _op. cit._) For,
while spirit tends towards concentration, material energy tends towards
diffusion.

And may not this have an intimate relation with our problem? May there
not be a connection between this conclusion of scientific philosophy
with respect to a final state of stability and homogeneity and the
mystical dream of the apocatastasis? May not this death of the body of
the Universe be the final triumph of its spirit, of God?

It is manifest that there is an intimate relation between the religious
need of an eternal life after death and the conclusions--always
provisional--at which scientific philosophy arrives with respect to the
probable future of the material or sensible Universe. And the fact is
that just as there are theologians of God and the immortality of the
soul, so there are also those whom Brunhes calls (_op. cit._, chap.
xxvi., Sec. 2) theologians of monism, and whom it would perhaps be better
to call atheologians, people who pertinaciously adhere to the spirit of
_a priori_ affirmation; and this becomes intolerable, Brunhes adds, when
they harbour the pretension of despising theology. A notable type of
these gentlemen may be found in Haeckel, who has succeeded in solving
the riddles of Nature!

These atheologians have seized upon the principle of the conservation of
energy, the "Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is
transformed" formula, the theological origin of which is seen in
Descartes, and have made use of it as a means whereby we are able to
dispense