Mathematical philosophy, a study of fate and freedom; lectures for educated laymen, by Cassius J. Keyser.

$8Î MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY
indeed a closed system, of transformations; any event,
whether great or small, that has occurred in course of the
beginningless past has occurred infinitely many times and
will recur infinitely many times in course of an unending
future; and nothing can occur that has not occurred,there never has been and there never will be aught that
is new,-every occurrence is a recurrence. Let me say
parenthetically, in passing, that such a concept of the
universe is damnably depressing but not more so than the
regnant mechanistic hypothesis of modern natural science.
In relation to this hypothesis you should by no means
fail to read and digest Professor W. B, Smith's great
address: "Push or Pull?" (Monist, Vol. XXIII, 1913).
See also Smith's "Are Motions Emotions?" (Tulane
Graduates' Magazine, Jan., 1914). And you should read
J. S. Haldane's Life, Mechanism and Personality.
Should you desire to pursue the matter further either
with a view to noting speculative adumbrations of the
group concept or, as I hope, with the larger purpose of
writing a historical monograph on the philosophy of the
Cosmic Cycle, the following references may be of some
service as a clue.
" The Dream of Scipio " in Cicero's Republic (Hardingham's translation).
Michael Foster's Physiology.
Lyell's Principles of Geology.
The fourth Eclogue of Virgil (verses 31-36).
Riickert's poem Chidher.
Moleschott's Kreislauf des Lebens.
Clifford's "The First and Last Catastrophe " in his
Lectures and Essays.
Inge's The Idea of Progress (being the Romanes
Lecture, 1920),