46 



THE OPAL SEA 



The Milky 

 Way a Sar- 

 gasso Sea. 



tern be any more than tennis balls floating in 

 the maelstrom? 



Ours is but a single circle in space. For mil- 

 lions of years perhaps we have been eddying 

 slowly in a Sargasso Sea, seeing on the other 

 side of the pool Jupiter and Saturn and Nep- 

 tune whirling around the rim. It is but a 

 little swirl in the universe, but had we but the 

 eyes to see and the mind to grasp we should 

 perhaps find it not different in principle from 

 the greater swirl. That vast clustering star- 

 belt which we call the Milky Way heaps up 

 from our horizon to a glittering ring in the 

 heavens. What it circles no one knows, but 

 there is little doubt that it is a circle. What 

 power swung that mighty swirl into motion? 

 Where blazes the luminary that drives those 

 stars together? Are they themselves the cen- 

 tral dynamos of the universe, and are all the 

 constellations that plunge hither and yon 

 through space driven off upon great ellipses 

 by their stupendous heat? 



There is no answer. The great truths were 

 evidently not meant for us. We have never 

 been able to understand them. We grope 

 blindly for causes, dragging to light plausible 

 theories that last a little time and then go their 

 way, being wholly insufficient. The long argu- 



The starch 

 lor truth. 



