The living universe / by Sir Francis Younghusband.

  • Francis Younghusband
Date:
[1933]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The living universe / by Sir Francis Younghusband. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    whole. As wheatfields are being sown here they are being harvested in the Antipodes. As they are ripening here they are being mown there. Always in one part of the earth they are waxing to a peak; and always, at the same time, at another part they are waning to the plain. Everywhere there is rhythm. Now let us apply this example of rhythmic process to the universe as a whole. When we were considering Altairian life we thought more in terms of space than of time. We imagined life on a certain planet. Now we have to take time more fully into consideration. The Altairians cannot for millions, and thousands of millions, of years remain at the highest pitch of being. Not even the supreme Altairian can re¬ main for ever there. Under prolonged excitation of the tensest emotions there would come a waning. Otherwise the responsive action would become merely mechanical. The sensitivity of the person¬ ality would be dulled and hardened. It would lose its instantaneity of response to stimulation. The power of initiative would dwindle. It would become incapable of rising to occasion after occasion. So, gradually, the power of the personality would wane. The period of intense activity would be followed by a period of lake-like calm. But this would not be the end of things. For, judging the macrocosm to act as the microcosm, we might well suppose that as the supreme Altairian, and subsequently all Altairians, were waning from the zenith the inhabitants of the planet of another star, say Arcturus, would be waxing to
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