III The Mechanical Interpretation of the Universe

supposed to be only static matter in the universe, and presumably nothing else existed, how did this strange kind of chance come into existence, which set the whole universe in motion? When the causes of this event were neither within nor without the imagined matter, how did this event come to occur? This is a very strange and contradictory contention, for it postulates one event leading on to another, and so on, ad infinitum, but it makes no mention of the primary cause which is supposed to have set off the whole chain reaction. It begins, ostensibly, with an event, which has no cause. On this baseless supposition stands the whole edifice of the chance origin of the universe. Suppose we accept that the universe came into existence in a purely fortuitous way. Were events then bound to take the exact course that they did? Was no other course open to them? Is it not conceivable that the stars could have collided with one another and been destroyed in the process? Was the original motion of necessity an evolutionary process, rather than just a simple movement? And was it essential that with this astonishing continuity the present universe should have been brought into existence? What was the logic, after all, which made the stars, after they were formed, move through the vastness of space with such perfect precision and regularity? And what was the logic, which brought about the formation of the solar system in a far corner of the universe? What was the logic, which was responsible for those extraordinary changes in our earth, which enabled life to begin and then survive? And it should be borne in mind that these transformations that occurred on earth have not been found replicated in any other place in the vast, countless worlds in the universe. Then what was that unique logic which caused life to grow from lifeless matter? Is there, in fact, any reasonable explanation of how life came into existence on earth and how, extraordinarily, the tendency developed to evolve continuously? Then again, what was the logic, which created all those astounding things in this speck of the universe, which were necessary to life and civilization? And what is the logic, which maintains the continuum