“FATED TO BE FREE” 
sensation of falling? Could one have any sensation 
of motion at all in absolutely vacant space — no 
matter at what speed with reference to the stars one 
might be moving? To have a sense of motion must 
we not have also a sense of something not in mo- 
tion? In your boat on the river, carried by the tide 
or the current, you have no sense of motion till you 
look shoreward. With your eye upon the water all 
is at rest. The balloonist floats in an absolute calm. 
The wind does not buffet him because he goes with 
it. But he looks down and sees objects beneath 
him, and he looks up and sees clouds or stars above 
him. Fancy him continuing his journey on into 
space till he leaves the earth behind him — on and on 
till the earth appears like another moon. Would 
he look up or down to see it? Would he havea 
sense of rising or of falling? If he threw out ballast, 
would it drop or soar, or would it refuse to leave 
him? 
Such speculations show how relative our sense 
standards are, how the law of the sphere upon which 
we live dominates and stamps our mental concepts. 
Away from the earth, in free space, and we are lost; 
we cannot find ourselves; we are stripped of every- 
thing but ourselves; we are stripped of night and 
day, of up and down, of east and west, of north and 
south, of time and space, of motion and rest, of 
weight and direction. Just what our predicament 
would be, who can fancy? 
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