XVI. 



BIG AND LITTLE. 



All our ideas, say the philosopliors, are rela- 

 tive ; it is irnj)()ssil)le to state witli absolute truth 

 of anythinc^ in heaven or earth that it is really just 

 thus and thus in itself, and not otherwise. Every- 

 thing is what it is only relatively to something 

 else, not absolutely and of its own inner essence. 

 Take, for example, the question of direction. At 

 first sight it might seem easy enough to decide 

 ■whether we are going eastward or westward ; but 

 in fact the (luestion is a very com})licate(l one. A 

 man is walking, to employ Mr. Herbert Spencer's 

 admirable illustration, upon the deck of a steamer, 

 outward bound, suppose we say, from Liverpool 

 to Halifax. Relatively, therefore, to the other 

 l)eof)le and objects at rest on the vessel, when he 

 walks from bow to stern, he is travelling east- 

 ward, and when he walks from aft forward lie is 

 travelling distinctly and unmistakably to the 

 west. But the ship, too, with all that is on it, is 

 moving in a right line westward ; and so, even 

 when he seems to be going east, lie is really being 

 far more rapidly carried, at the rate of nineteen 

 knots an hour, in the o]ti)osite direction. That is 



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