d the stars.

That an all-knowing Being might have foretold the ultimate event
at any preceding period by observing the motions of the parts
then occurring, and reasoning as to the train of consequences
arising from these nations, is supposable. But considerations
arising from this involve no difficulty in ascribing to this
prematerial train of events infinite duration. For progress there
is none, and we can quite as easily conceive of some part of
space where the same Infinite Intelligence, contemplating a
similar train of unfruitful motions, finds that at no time in the
future will the equilibrium be disturbed. But where evolution is
progressing this is no longer conceivable, as being contradictory
to the very idea of progressive development. In this case
Infinite Intelligence

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_necessarily_ finds, as the result of his contemplation, the
aggregation of matter, and the consequences arising therefrom.

The negation of so primary a material property as gravitation to
these primitive motions of (or in) the ether, probably involves
the negation of many properties we find associated with matter.
Possibly the quality of inertia, equally primary, is involved
with that of gravitation, and we may suppose that these two
properties so intimately associated in determining the motions of
bodies in space were conferred upon the primitive motions as
crystallographic attraction and rigidity are first conferred upon
the solid growing from the supersaturated liquid. But in some
degree less speculative is the supposition that the new order of
motions involved the transformation of much energy into the form
of heat vibrations; so that the newly generated matter, like the
newly formed crystal, began its existence in a medium richly fed
with thermal radiant energy. We may consider that the thermal
conditions were such as would account for a primitive
dissociation of the elements. And, again, we recall how the
physicist finds his estimate of the energy involved in mere
gravitational aggregation inadequate to afford explanation of
past solar heat. It is supposable, on such a hypothesis as we
have been dwelling on, that the entire subsequent gravitational
condensation and conversion of material potential energy, dating
from the first formation of matter to the stage of star
formation

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may be insignificant in amount compared with the conversion of
etherial energy attending the crystallizing out of matter from
the primitive