ems, which form with it
clusters of stars. Our solar system, far from being alone in the
universe, is only one of an extensive brotherhood, bound by common
laws and subject to like influences. Even on the very verge of
creation, where imagination might lay the beginning of the realms of
chaos, we see unbounded proofs of order, a regularity in the
arrangement of inanimate things, suggesting to us that there are other
intellectual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in the
abysses of space.

Though it may take a beam of light a million years to bring to our
view those distant worlds, the end is not yet. Far away in the depths
of space we catch the faint gleams of other groups of stars like our
own. The finger of a man can hide them in their remoteness. Their vast
distances from one another have dwindled into nothing. They and their
movements have lost all individuality; the innumerable suns of which
they are composed blend all their collected light into one pale milky
glow.

Thus extending our view from the earth to the solar system, from the
solar system to the expanse of the group of stars to which we belong,
we behold a series of gigantic nebular creations rising up one after
another, and forming greater and greater colonies of worlds. No
numbers can express them, for they make the firmament a haze of stars.
Uniformity, even though it be the uniformity of magnificence, tires at
last, and we abandon the survey; for our eyes can only behold a
boundless prospect, and conscience tells us our own unspeakable
insignificance.

But what has become of the time-honored doctrine of the human destiny
of the universe?--that doctrine for the sake of which the controversy
I have described in this chapter was raised? It has disappeared. In
vain was Bruno burnt and Galileo imprisoned; the truth forced its way,
in spite of all opposition, at last. The end of the conflict was a
total rejection of authority and tradition, and the adoption of
scientific truth.

THE KORAN

From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
1876, by Harper & Brothers

Arabian influence, thus imposing itself on Africa and Asia by
military successes, and threatening even Constantinople, rested
essentially on an intellectual basis, the value of which it is needful
for us to consider. The Koran, which is that basis, has exercised a
great control over the destinies of mankind, and still serves as a
rule of life to a ve