If the Universe must be
eternal, if within it and as regards each of its component worlds,
periods in which the movement is towards homogeneity, towards the
degradation of energy, must alternate with other periods in which the
movement is towards heterogeneity, then it is necessary that the
Universe should be infinite, that there should be scope, always and in
each world, for some action coming from without. And, in fact, the body
of God cannot be other than eternal and infinite.
But as far as our own world is concerned, its gradual
levelling-down--or, we might say, its death--appears to be proved. And
how will this process affect the fate of our spirit? Will it wane with
the degradation of the energy of our world and return to
unconsciousness, or will it rather grow according as the utilizable
energy diminishes and by virtue of the very efforts that it makes to
retard this degradation and to dominate Nature?--for this it is that
constitutes the life of the spirit. May it be that consciousness and its
extended support are two powers in contraposition, the one growing at
the expense of the other?
The fact is that the best of our scientific work, the best of our
industry (that part of it I mean--and it is a large part--that does not
tend to destruction), is directed towards retarding this fatal process
of the degradation of energy. And organic life, the support of our
consciousness, is itself an effort to avoid, so far as it is possible,
this fatal period, to postpone it.
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