226 INDOOR STUDIES 



summer of the earth's geologic history he appears, 

 and in an hour he is gone; a few hours more and 

 all is gone, and the earth itself is frozen into the 

 everlasting death and night of the winter of the 

 solar system. Science says in just so many words, 

 "there is no reason to deny the final cessation of 

 the sun's activity, and the consequent death of the 

 system. " 



Our hearts, our affections, all our peculiarly hu- 

 man attributes, draw back from many of the deduc- 

 tions of science. We feel the cosmic chill. We 

 cannot warm or fill the great void. The universe 

 seems orphaned. This is the reason why many 

 people, who accept science with their understand- 

 ing, still repudiate it in their hearts; the religious 

 beliefs of their youth still meet a want of their 

 natures. 



It makes a great difference whether we look upon 

 things from the point of view of our personal wants 

 and needs, or from the point of view of reason. It 

 takes mankind, as it takes every individual man, 

 a long and hard struggle to break away from the 

 former standpoint, and to gain the mountain-top 

 implied in the latter. When I look upon the sun 

 from my place and surroundings, he seems to be a 

 mere appurtenance of the earth. How he seems to 

 attend us, and to swing around us to give light and 

 warmth! How immense seems the earth; how 

 small, comparatively, the sun! See him setting 

 behind the hills or riding wp out of the wave! 

 Xenophanes, according to Plutarch, thought the 



