UNIVERSITIES
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UNIVERSITIES
ony. The youth of the world seems to exert a stronger
charm on human speculation than its old age and
decline. There does not seem to exist any mythical
cosmodysy, and very httle can be found on scientific
cosmodysies. So much the more explicit and
detailed is BibUcal cosmodysy (see Judgment,
Divine, IV). And yet, from a scientific point of
view, the prospective conclusion from the known
premises of the present world would seem to be better
warranted than retrospective speculations upon cos-
mical conditions entirely unknown. A classification
of cosmodysies from the various meanings of cosrnos
would have no object, for want of scientific material.
No terrestrial, planetary, stellar, or universal cos-
modysies have been elaborated. Two classes, how-
everj may be distinguished from the manner of end
to which the world may come: the extinction and the
destruction theories.
(1) The extinction theory rests on a certain irre- versible process, common to all natural phenomena. While the sum total of cosmical energy is supposed to remain constant, the amount of potential energy is steadily diminishing. It is the unstable condition of potential energy that animates all activity in the imiverse. Drifting as it is towards stabihty, it will end in exhaustion and repose. The process is not reversible and consequently not cyclical. Applying it to the earth but abstracting from organic life, it will mean the extinction of its interior plutonic power and of its rotary speed. The raising and shifting of continents, the continual tremors, occasional earth- quakes and volcanic eruptions, the gradual shrinkage of the crust and the wandering of the polar ice caps, are so manv irretrievable losses of potential energy. If the lengthening of our time scale, the sidereal day, is not directly observable, it is at least indicated in the apparent acceleration of the moon's longitudinal motions, and theoretically assured from the oceanic elevation, always east of the moon and acting as a perennial brake on the revolving globe.
The stability of planetary movements is guaranteed only for the "span of historic times. The demon- strations given by Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, Delaunay, Gylden, all rest on successive approxima- tion, and, what is worse, they are based on fictitious celestial points and Newtonian attraction, exclusive of resisting medium, planetary tides, magnetic fields, and radio-repulsive forces. The resisting medium alone would suffice to change planetary orbits into spirals with the sun as the final pole and resting-place. Our sun is not exempt from the general thermody- namic process. Its temperature is constantly sinking, and all theories of complete contemporaneous com- pensation, by contraction and meteoric impacts, have been rejected. According to Lord Kelvin, the sun has not illuminated the earth for five hundred millions of years, and will not do so for many millions of years longer, unless new sources are discovered in the storehouse of creation. The recent electronic theory of matter has indeed compUcated the problem of ele- mental evolution, but, so far, has not reversed the general process towards repose. May not (he extinction of our luminary be forecast by the multi- tudinous existence of obscure stars, ascertained by Bessel and confirmed by the spectroscope?
(2) The destruction theory does not consider annihilation of matter; it only opens the field of perturbations in the present organization of planetary or stellar systems. Within the solar system, the erratic procedure of comets and meteors is harmless only becau.se of their insignificance. In a sidereal cluster, like the Milky Way, however, star may collide with star, or star with cosmic cloud. The spectacle of meteors, kindling to brief splendour in shooting athwart our atmosphere, is repeated on an enormous scale in the blazing stars that occasionally appear in nebuk' or clusters, particularly in the
Milky Way. Rising in a few days to a thousand
times their normal brilUancy, they relapse in the
course of years into their former obscurity. Tem-
porary stars were kno^\Ti to Hipparchus and gave the
impulse to his star catalogue. From 1848 to the
time when the continuous photographic survey of the
heavens began, about one in ten years was noticed
with the naked eye. At present, novce are announced
almost every year; but, like the shooting stars, most
will pass unnoticed. Whether the stellar conflagra-
tion is due to direct colUsioU; or the passing of stars
within grazing distance, or rather to the shooting of
globes through cosmical clouds or nebulie, in all cases
it would mean the end of our terrestrial habitation.
The orbit of our sun is inchned at a small angle to
the plane of the Milky Way, and its pace is httle
more than half the average stellar speed. This is all
we know of our cosmic tour. Will the sun forever
keep clear of the star throngs, and never get entangled
in the diffused nebulosities with which the Milky
Way abounds? Small as our knowledge is of the
stellar agglomeration in which we travel, it dwindles
to almost nothing in regard to ultra-galactic worlds.
Whether they are embryos or ruins will be an enigma
forever. We can only say that, if spiral nebulae
develop into galaxies, the incessant action of their
clustering power must produce conditions for catas-
trophes, at least similar to those we are witnessing
in the fililky Way.
(.3) Our scanty science of cosmodysy might be a temptation to look for further information in the Scripture. Will the darkening of sun and moon, and the falhng of stars, lend support to the extinction theory? Or does St. Peter advocate the destruction theory when he speaks of the heavens being on fire and the elements melted by burning heat? The like question may be raised in cosmogony. Can Genesis be consulted to decide between the hydrodynamic, the meteoric, and the ballistic hypotheses? The answer is given by an attempt, made three centuries ago, in cosmography. The Scriptural decision of the controversy, whether the solar system be geocen- tric or hehocentric, was bound to be a failure either way. Cosmogonic revelation was given to impress on the human race its physical and moral dependency upon the Creator. Likewise has cosmodysic revela- tion the purpose of holding out to mankind the final administration of justice. Purely scientific curiosity will find no satisfaction in Scripture.
Literature on the present sv.ttem of the world: — Almagest in Claudii Plolevim Opera. I (T.eipziE. 1S9S, 1903); CoPERNieuB, De Temlulionihvx orbium rnhxlmm iTlinrn. 1S73): Schiapahelli, iSui jiremrsoH. tU Copmui-o. Ill M K^, rvatorio di Brera, 1873); Idem, Orig>ne del s]/slenia iil<n:<tnr!>. in Mem. R. istilitto lomb., XVIII (1S9S); Tannery. Ihcli.rrlns sur Vhistoirc de I'aslronomie (Paris. 1893); Specula Vaticaim, I. La rolation de la lerre (Rome, 1911-13).
Literature on the past and future of the world: — Kant, AU- gemeine Naturgeschichte u. Theorie des Himmels (1755, Leip- zig, 1S9S); Laplace, Exposition du syslt^me du vtonde (Paris, 179S-99) ; Fate. L'origine du monde (Paris. 1.SS4) ; Braun, Kos- mogonie (Munstcr. 1887, 1895, 1905) ; Lockver. Meteoric hypoth- esis (London. 1890); Darwin, The Tides and Kindred Phenomena (Cambridge, 1898). See, Evolution of the Stellar System (Lynn, Alass.. 1896-1910), I, II; Lingondes, Formation michanique rfu systime du monde (Paris, 1897); Poincar^, Sur la stabilM du systhne solaire (Paris, 1898); Kreichgauer, Die Aegualor/rage (StevI, 1902); Lord Keltin, 0?^ the Age of the Sun's Heat (A'n(. Philosophy, Cambridge, 1903); Clerke, Modern cosmogonies (London, 1905); .^rrhenifs, Dns Werden der Welten (Leipzig, 1907); WiU)E, On the Orim'! ff Cnmrtorii Bodies (Manehester
Mem., 1910); Belot, Cos ; f ,;',»oiinairc (Paris, 1911);
Chamberun, MoriTON, aii-l 'iIh r^ I "trihutions to Cosmogony, etc. (Washington, Carnipi' i'i>\ . ii" lii7). Poincar^, Lefona sur les hypotheses cosmogomqut^ iTun^, 1911).
J. G. H.1GEN.
UQiversities. — The principal Cathohc foundations have been treated in special articles; here the general aspects of the subject are presented: I. Origin and organization; II. Academic work and development; III. Renaissance and Reformation; IV. Modern period; V. Catholic action.
I. Origin and Obg.^nization. — Although the name
