Page 8

 

Letter №65 p. 8

lest what I have to say should fall on a too encumbered soil and only bring forth weeds. "This potential and imaginary materia prima cannot exist without form," says Raleigh, and he is right in so far that the materia prima of science exists but in their imagination. Can they say the same quantity of energy has always been moving the matter of the Universe? Certainly not so long as they teach that when the elements of the material cosmos, elements which had first to manifest themselves in their uncombined gaseous state, were uniting the quantity of matter — moving energy was a million times greater than it is now when our globe is cooling off. For where did the heat that


Notes: 

materia prima means "primal chaos," or the primitive, formless base of the material world.

Raleigh indicates Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618), quoting his book History of the World.