184 BIG AND LITTLE. 



than one-tentli part of the entire circumference of 

 the earth at the eqir'^^r. It is (luite imjxjssible 

 for us really to {)ictui * to ourselves the world on 

 wliich we live as a solid globe of its true size and 

 comparative dimensions to other known bodies. 

 When we try to do so, we deceive ourselves, and 

 think only of a small ball, sufficiently little to be 

 seen almost JiU round at once, and no more com- 

 parable to the actual planet than a grain of sand 

 is comparable to a county of England. 



If it is thus impossible for us to figure to our- 

 selves our own world even, how infinitely more 

 impossible is it for us to figure to ourselves the 

 sun, the system, and the galaxy generally I St. 

 Paul's is big, but London is bigger; an English 

 county is beyond our mental grasp, but England 

 itself is still more infinitel}'' beyond it; yet Eng- 

 land, is only an atom in Europe, Europe in the 

 continents, and the continents themselves in the 

 world that contains them. Then the world itself, 

 that vast unit, so huge that we cannot even pre- 

 tend to picture its greatness mentally to ourselves? 

 becomes far too tiny for a useful standard when 

 we come to consider the infinities about us. As 

 a planet even, the world sinks into utter insig- 

 nificance beside its giant neighbors Jupiter and 

 Saturn. It would take nearly thirteen hundred 

 worlds as big as our own to make up an earth of 

 the same size as Jupiter. We cannot conceive of 



