THE VISIBLE IS ONLY ITS SHADOW. 



61 



And yet we have only gone towards the infinitely great as far as we 

 at first went towards the infinitely small, and it is still absolutely 

 inconceivable that we could be conscious of any change ; our 

 everyday hfe would go on as usual, we should be quite oblivious 

 of the fact that every second of time, with all its incidents and 

 thoughts had been lengthened to 5,868 millions of millions of 

 years. We thus see that immensity and minuteness in extension 

 of space, and quickness and slowness in duration of time are 

 figments only of our finiteness of outlook. 



There are hundreds of other examples I could give you of 

 illusions in the world of appearances, but I must be content with 

 only a few more of common experience. 



The Sun and Stars are seen revolving round the earth, and it 

 was only a few hundred years ago that this was discovered to 

 be an illusion caused by the earth itself revolving on its axis, 

 but for a long time the explanation was declared to be a sacri- 

 legious invention, as it was contrar}' to Scripture, and those who 

 dared to say it was an illusion were threatened with death. 



The Moon is also seen to rise in the east and set in the west, 

 and it is a common belief even now that the Moon is revolving 

 round the earth in that direction, but this is quite an illusion 

 because the Moon is really moving in the opposite direction, 

 namely, from west to east; the illusion is caused by the fact that 

 the earth is also revolving from west to east but twenty-nine 

 times faster than the Moon takes to complete her orbit. 



We thmk that the leaves of a tree are green, but they are not 

 really so, they only absorb the red and the violet, the other 

 primary colours contained in Sunlight, and reflect the green. If 

 we had a leaf showing absolutely pure green colour, it would 

 appear perfectly black in any light which did not contain green. 



I have given these examples to show how we are sur- 

 rounded by illusion through ignorance caused by our narrow 

 outlook and our taking for granted that things in this world of 

 appearances are what they seem rather than what they are. 



To many it must be a puzzle to explain the phenomenon of 

 what is called " up and down " in our consciousness. It is 

 a fact that in our sense of sight all objects are inverted on the 

 retina ; for instance, the image of a tree is depicted there with 

 its roots pointing upwards and its branches pointing downwards, 

 namely, towards our feet, yet we see it right side up. It is how- 

 ever possible to arrange so that an image of an object is formed 

 on the retina in its natural position and in that case we see it 

 upside down. If a small hole is pricked in a card and held close 

 in front of the eye so that a pencil of light passing through that 

 hole impinges upon the retina, and a pin with its head uppermost 

 is placed between the hole and the eye, the image of the head 

 of that pm is thrown on the retina without being inverted, namely,. 



