Note 1055 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN (continued 2)

Our means of astronomical research are not sufficiently definite to enable us to explain conclusively the appearance of previously unobserved stars (e.g. Nova Persei, 1901), but there is good reason to suppose that these new lights sometimes signal to us the catastrophe of millions of beings more or less similar to ourselves. We are, however, well acquainted with the convulsions of nature, which often bring swift destruction to thousands of those dwelling on this small globe; for instance, the Mont Pelée eruption of 1903, which claimed some 40,000 victims. It might indeed be imagined from the occurrence of such disasters that animated nature is merely a kind of surface disease of the earth, which undergoes a spontaneous cure from time to time by means of earthquakes, floods, volcanic action, etc. Certainly, if we are the only result of the activities of this solar system, there would seem to be much superfluous expenditure of power and materials. The conception of God, when cleared of all irrelevancy, is merely that of a perpetual source of energy; and that we must find in the medium we exist in or nowhere. It is nugatory to talk of beginnings and endings when dealing with the infinite, unless as regards phases of phenomena; if there had to be an end of the universe, there would never have been a beginning.