PREDICTIONS FROM THE LAW 149 



You will say that the earth must certainly get into 

 the right position for the eclipse next June (1927); so 

 it cannot be free to go anywhere it pleases. I can put 

 that right. I hold to it that the earth goes anywhere it 

 pleases. The next thing is that we must find out where 

 it has been pleased to go. The important question for us 

 is not where the earth has got to in the inscrutable 

 absolute behind the phenomena, but where we shall 

 locate it in our conventional background of space and 

 time. We must take measurements of its position, for 



Fig. 6 



example, measurements of its distance from the sun. 

 In Fig. 6, SSx shows the ridge in the world which we 

 recognise as the sun; I have drawn the earth's ridge in 

 duplicate (EE 1} EE 2 ) because I imagine it as still un- 

 decided which track it will take. If it takes EE ± we lay 

 our measuring rods end to end down the ridges and 

 across the valley from S ± to E ± , count up the number, 

 and report the result as the earth's distance from the 

 sun. The measuring rods, you will remember, adjust 

 their lengths proportionately to the radius of curvature 

 of the world. The curvature along this contour is rather 



