UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



n 



Life and nature and philosophy are full of contra- 

 dictions. The globe upon which we live presents the 

 first great contradiction. It has no under or upper 

 side; it is all outside. Go around it from east to west, 

 or from north to south, and you find no bottom or 

 top such as you see on the globe in your study, or as 

 you apparently see on the moon and the sun in the 

 heavens. A fly at the South Pole of the schoolroom 

 globe is in a reversed position, but the discoverers 

 of the South Pole on our earth did not find them- 

 selves in a reversed position on their arrival there, 

 or in danger of falling off. The sphere is a perpetual 

 contradiction. It is the harmonization of opposites. 

 Our minds are adjusted to planes and to right lines, 

 to up and down, to over and under. Our action 

 upon things is linear. Curves and circles baffle us. 

 My mind cannot adjust itself to the condition of 

 free empty space. 



Transport yourself in imagination away from the 

 earth to the vacancy of the interstellar regions. Can 

 you convince yourself that there would be no over 

 and no under, no east and no west, no north and no 

 south? Would one not look down to one's feet, and 

 lift one's hand to one's head? What could one do? 

 — no horizontal, no vertical — just the negation of 

 all motion and direction. If one rode upon a meteor- 

 ite rushing toward the earth, would one have the 



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