THE ROUND WORLD 



one end. God is unthinkable, because He is cause- 



The earth is so big that all our acquaintance with 

 size avails us not — it is infinite to our senses — the 

 question of size or of form never occurs. We cannot 

 think "earth " as it is, any more than we can " be- 

 coming," or " evolution," or "motion." When we 

 think "earth," we see a globe like the moon, or 

 larger, with a top and bottom side; the earth has 

 no sides, no boundary lines, or form bounded by 

 right lines; it is all surface to which there are no 

 boundaries. 



To our senses the bullet-like speed of the earth 

 through space amoimts to absolute rest, and its 

 revolution on its axis is motion on such a scale that 

 we are quite unconscious of it. Just as its spherical 

 shape, to our senses, becomes a boundless plain, so 

 its huge silent motion through the great void is equiv- 

 alent to eternal rest. We are only conscious of mo- 

 tion when we see or feel something that is not in 

 motion, but on this earth, where is the fixed point? 

 All is fixed, yet all is in motion. Drifting with the 

 tide on the river, your boat seems at rest till you 

 look shoreward; but drifting on the earth, where is 

 the shore to look to? Those bright points in the heav- 

 ens are drifting also, but they are so far from us 

 that we cannot gauge our yearly motion by them, 

 nor theirs by ours; with reference to them, we seem 

 anchored in absolute space. Our diurnal motion 

 221 



