Our readers are now aware from what we have said in Chapter u. that the two great requisites for organised existence are, in the first place, an organ of memory, giving the individual a hold upon the past, and secondly, the possibility of varied action in the present, and that unless these two things are fulfilled life is simply inconceivable.

Again, in Chapters III, IV., and V. we have sufficiently discussed the visible universe and its potentialities. We have seen that although at present it contains the essential requisites for organised existence, yet, in the remote future, a time will necessarily arrive when, through a degradation of the Energy of this universe, that variety of motion which is essential to our conception of life will be unattainable. Immortality is, therefore, impossible in such a universe; but even allowing all this, to be the case, it is at least conceivable that man may be at death drafted off into some superior rank of being connected with the present universe, and thence ultimately removed into a new order of things when the present universe shall have become effete.

Let us now, therefore, very briefly discuss the question as to the possibility of intelligences superior to man existing in the present visible universe.