40 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



the "firmament of heaven"; and Sir George Airy refers 

 to the case of a Greek philosopher who was persecuted for 

 hazarding the assertion, then deemed monstrous, that the 

 sun might be as large as the whole country of Greece. 

 The concerns of a universe, regarded from this point of 

 view, were much more commensurate with man and his 

 concerns than those of the universe which science now re- 

 veals to us; and hence that to suit man's purposes, or that 

 in compliance with his prayers, changes should occur in the 

 order of the universe, was more easy of belief in the an- 

 cient world than it can be now. In the very magnitude 

 which it assigns to natural phenomena, science has aug- 

 mented the distance between them and man, and increased 

 the popular belief in their orderly progression. 



As a natural consequence the demand for evidence is 

 more exacting than it used to be, whenever it is affirmed 

 that the order of nature has been disturbed. Let us take 

 as an illustration the miracle by which the victory of 

 Joshua over the Amo rites was rendered complete. In 

 this case the sun is reported to have stood still for "about 

 a whole day" upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley 

 of Ajalon. An Englishman of average education at the 

 present day would naturally demand a greater amount of 

 evidence to prove that this occurrence took place, than 

 would have satisfied an Israelite in the age succeeding 

 that of Joshua. For, to the one, the miracle probably con- 

 sisted in the stoppage of a fiery ball less than a yard in 

 diameter, while to the other it would be the stoppage 

 of an orb fourteen hundred thousand times the earth in 

 size. And even accepting the interpretation that Joshua 

 dealt with what was apparent merely, but that what really 

 occurred was the suspension of the earth's rotation, I 



