334 THEORETICAL BIOLOGY 



and in its place put space, infinite and meaningless. In this 

 boundless space, existing only in thought, the small earthly 

 dimensions could find no explanation. Their place was taken 

 by light years, and light centuries. And everlasting space 

 engulfed these too. 



The deity enthroned above the sky disappeared ; there 

 was no place for him in the infinite expanse of space. But 

 with him disappeared the idea of the universe. For now 

 the world-as-sensed really embraced everything that was 

 there, and did not, as formerly, seem to stop at the limits of 

 what could be apprehended by the senses. 



The newly discovered telescopes seemed to be trying to 

 master the infinity of space, and yet they only pushed back 

 the visible a little further, without ever being able to burst 

 the bonds of the extended. In the same way, microscopes 

 seemed to open up the world of the infinitely small, but 

 they also were able to expand the limits of the visible only a 

 small way. Even between the smallest points the extended 

 always reappeared, enveloping them like a firm wall. Even 

 here the limited perceptive faculties had always to be cor- 

 rected by the aid of a " thought " space in which the whirl 

 of atoms could spin. 



The infinite space of thought, combined with the infinite 

 time of thought, prevented men from recognising a universe 

 lying beyond the possibility of their own perception. Every- 

 thing, positively everything, ought to be and must be carried 

 out in the world-as-sensed of each individual human being. 



Since that time a kind of megalomania has seized men, 

 and they will no longer recognise limits to the possibility of 

 knowledge. To the observer in the balloon this megalomania 

 has something comical in it ; human beings seem to him like 

 flies gone so mad that they believe they can command a view 

 of the entire universe and master it. 



With the shape of the world that they marked off from 



