178 BIG AND LITTLE. 



to say, lie is so carried relatively once more to tlie 

 two continents of Europe and America, getting 

 every moment farther from the one and nearer 

 and nearer still to the other. Yet in reality, at 

 that very same second of time, the earth, in its 

 daily revolution, is whirling him ever so much 

 farther from west to east ; so that, when the ship 

 appears to be moving westward, it, with tlie ocean 

 and the continents around it, is actually being hur- 

 ried with amazing speed in the contrary direction, 

 eastward and eastward. Once more, the entire 

 earth itself is at the same instant spinning with 

 still vaster haste in a wide circle through si)ace 

 around the sun ; so that the real motion of the 

 man on the ship is one compounded of his own 

 movements, the movements of the vessel, tlie 

 daily rotation of the earth on its axis, and the 

 annual cycle of our planet around its primary the 

 sun in a great orbit. Nor is this all. Tlie move- 

 ment so compounded, again, is relative only to 

 the solar S3^stem ; while the whole S(jlar S3'stem 

 itself en bloc, sun, and earth, und ship, and passen- 

 ger together, is all careering wildly through illim- 

 itable space towards a particular star in the 

 constellation Hercules. And whither we are all 

 going in the lump, system, and star, and constel- 

 lation, and galaxy, no astronomer has ever yet 

 been able, with any a2)proach to certainty, to 

 determine. 



