no cognisance of any change, neither could we possibly
note any difference if everything were reduced to a hundredth part of
the original size and were going a hundred times quicker; and even
when reduced a thousand or a million times, or to such minuteness that
the whole of our solar system with its revolving planets became no
larger than one of those atoms in the needle point, and the whole of
the starry universe therefore reduced to the size of the needle point,
its millions of suns coinciding with the millions of planetary systems
in that steel particle--our earth would still revolve round the sun,
though no larger than one of those minute planetary particles and
travelling at the rate of light, but we should still have no knowledge
of any change, in fact, our life would go on as usual, though it was
difficult a few minutes ago to think it conceivable that so small a
globe could be inhabited by sentient beings.

Once more let us consider that the change is made in the direction of
expansion in space and slowing down of Time; let all our surroundings
be so enormously increased that each of the atoms in the steel point
became as large as our solar system and the steel point as large as
the visible universe, each atom therefore taking the place of a star,
and motion being reduced in proportion; it is still absolutely
inconceivable that we could know of any change having taken place,
though the length of our needle, which was at first, say, one inch,
would now be so great that light, travelling 186,000 miles per second,
would take 500,000 years to traverse its length, and the stature of
each one of us would be so great that light would require over
36,000,000 years to travel from head to foot, and that 36,000,000
years would have to be multiplied 163,000,000 times, making 5860
millions of millions of years to represent the time that an ordinary
_sneeze_ would take under such conditions. And yet we have only gone
towards the infinitely great exactly 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 life would go
on as usual, we should be quite oblivious to the fact that every
second of time, with all its incidents and thoughts, had been
lengthened to 5860 millions of millions of years. Do we not now begin
to grasp the fact that immensity and minuteness in extension, and
motion in duration, are figments only of our fini