FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  
to the composition of the sun and moon--would stand precisely where it does, but the bulk of our mathematical astronomy would not exist. Our calendar would still be in all essential respects as it is now; our year with the solstices and equinoxes as its cardinal points. The texture of our poetry might conceivably be the poorer without its star spangles; our philosophy, for the want of a nebular hypothesis. These would be the main differences. Yet, to those who indulge in speculative dreaming, how much smaller life would be with a sun and a moon and a blue beyond for the only visible, the only thinkable universe. And it is, we repeat, from the scientific standpoint a mere accident that the present--the daylight--world periodically opens, as it were, and gives us this inspiring glimpse of the remoteness of space. One may imagine countless meteors and comets streaming through the solar system, unobserved by those who dwelt under such conditions as have just been suggested, or some huge dark body from the outer depths sweeping straight at that little visible universe, and all unsuspected by the inhabitants. One may imagine the scientific people of such a world, calm in their assurance of the permanence of things, incapable almost of conceiving any disturbing cause. One may imagine how an imaginative writer who doubted that permanence would be pooh-poohed. "Cannot we see to the uttermost limits of space?" they might argue, "and is it not altogether blue and void?" Then, as the unseen visitor draws near, begin the most extraordinary perturbations. The two known heavenly bodies suddenly fail from their accustomed routine. The moon, hitherto invariably full, changes towards its last quarter--and then, behold! for the first time the rays of the greater stars visibly pierce the blue canopy of the sky. How suddenly--painfully almost--the minds of thinking men would be enlarged when this rash of the stars appeared. And what then if _our_ heavens were to open? Very thin indeed is the curtain between us and the unknown. There is a fear of the night that is begotten of ignorance and superstition, a nightmare fear, the fear of the impossible; and there is another fear of the night--of the starlit night--that comes with knowledge, when we see in its true proportion this little life of ours with all its phantasmal environment of cities and stores and arsenals, and the habits, prejudices, and promises of men. Down there in the gaslit
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>  



Top keywords:

imagine

 

universe

 
visible
 

suddenly

 

scientific

 
permanence
 

heavenly

 
bodies
 
habits
 

perturbations


extraordinary
 

arsenals

 

invariably

 

hitherto

 

accustomed

 

routine

 

stores

 

gaslit

 

uttermost

 
Cannot

poohed
 

writer

 

doubted

 
limits
 
promises
 

unseen

 

visitor

 
prejudices
 

altogether

 

quarter


cities
 

begotten

 

imaginative

 
thinking
 

ignorance

 

superstition

 

impossible

 

painfully

 

nightmare

 
appeared

curtain

 
unknown
 

enlarged

 
heavens
 
proportion
 

behold

 
environment
 

phantasmal

 

knowledge

 
canopy