THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



drop off or see the sky beneath us. Yet when we 

 reach the South Pole, the sky is still overhead, 

 just as at the North. This is the contradiction that 

 staggers our senses. 



The truth is that as dwellers upon the earth, we 

 are completely under the law of the sphere, so com- 

 pletely that we cannot get away from it even in 

 imagination, without seeing ourselves involved in 

 a world of hopeless contradictions. The law of the 

 sphere is that there is no up and no down, no over 

 and no under, no rising and no falling, apart from 

 itself. Away from the earth, in empty sidereal 

 space, we should be absolutely lost, and should not 

 know whether we were right-side-up or not, stand- 

 ing on our heads or our heels, because we must ex- 

 perience a negation of all direction as we know it 

 here. We might know our right hand from our left 

 hand, but can we picture to ourselves whether we 

 should be falling up or falling down, whether the 

 stars should be over us or under us? 



Or go to the other extreme, and fancy yourself at 

 the centre of the earth; which way would your feet 

 point, up or down? Which way would things fall? 

 Try to imagine the dilemma you would be in, if you 

 could tunnel through the earth, when you came out 

 on the other side ! And what is curious about it all 

 is that our experience with balls and spheres, little 

 and big, does not prepare us for these contradic- 

 tions. Every globe we see, even the sun and moon, 

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