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within the range of our vision, — or, in the expressive phrase, “in 
the twinkling of an eye and they must disappear as objects 
(whatever brief impression may remain on the retina of the 
eye), whenever they are removed from the range of our vision, 
or cease to exist ; and, however bright they may have been 
with the effulgence of light, they could not possibly be seen as 
objects even half a minute after they ceased to exist. 
20. Nay, I will venture to go one step further and ask, — 
But what if light is instantaneous in what is called its “ trans- 
mission ” ? I will also add that I believe it to be so ; and 
further that there needs no corpuscular emanation of light 
in order that we may see it, neither any undulation of an 
imagined ether; but that the moment light is, it is seen, just 
as instantaneously as it was “ in the beginning,” when “ Grod 
said, Let there be light and there was light ” ! For, let me 
ask, what difference is there, or can there possibly be, in the 
very least, between the “ transmission ” of light and of dark- 
ness ? Even this absurd notion that stars might remain 
visible as stars for years after ceasing to exist, implies merely 
that the blanks or dark spaces produced by the non-existence 
of the extinct stars, would only become perceptible to us in 
the same time that their light had taken to travel to us when 
they were formerly created ! But how do we see a dark 
object at all ? Surely there is no light to be transmitted or 
waved in undulations from it ; and yet we do see it ; and I 
venture to say instantaneously, the moment it comes within 
the range of our vision, and as quickly, if seen at all, whether 
at a great distance or nearer. But, in short, for I must not 
travel into optics, nor pursue this important and interesting 
subject further here, I venture to say that when we see the sun, 
and the dark spots upon the sun, we see them together, just as 
they are, and at the very time they come within the range of 
our eyesight or glasses (though I am not overlooking nor 
denying the effect of atmosphere, any more than of defective 
eyes or object-glasses) ; and so, we may be sure that the 
stars in the heavens, as catalogued by Hipparchus and still 
visible to us, are actually and most certainly existing as we 
gaze upon them, and also that the few occasionally variable 
stars do vary in their brilliancy at the very time when they 
appear to us to do so. In fact, I allege that there never were 
any optical illusions in nature so astounding and incredible, as 
those which have been invented and palmed off upon man- 
kind in modern days as deductions from our current physical 
astronomy. 
21. The origin of this notion, I must briefly observe, is based 
upon the theory of the velocity of light, calculated upon the 
