phase of life, and is not its
cause.

[Sidenote: Corrections of anthropocentric ideas.] As man advances in
knowledge he discovers that of his primitive conclusions some are
doubtless erroneous, and many require better evidence to establish their
truth incontestably. A more prolonged and attentive examination gives
him reason, in some of the most important particulars, to change his
mind. He finds that the earth on which he lives is not a floor covered
over with a starry dome, as he once supposed, but a globe self-balanced
in space. The crystalline vault, or sky, is recognized to be an optical
deception. It rests upon the earth nowhere, and is no boundary at all;
there is no kingdom of happiness above it, but a limitless space,
adorned with planets and suns. Instead of a realm of darkness and woe in
the depths on the other side of the earth, men like ourselves are found
there, pursuing, in Australia and New Zealand, the innocent pleasures
and encountering the ordinary labours of life. By the aid of such lights
as knowledge gradually supplies, he comes at last to discover that this,
our terrestrial habitation, instead of being a chosen, a sacred spot, is
only one of similar myriads, more numerous than the sands of the sea,
and prodigally scattered through space.

[Sidenote: Consequence of discovering the form of the earth.] Never,
perhaps, was a more important truth discovered. All the visible evidence
was in direct opposition to it. [Sidenote: Detection of its
insignificance.] The earth, which had hitherto seemed to be the very
emblem of immobility, was demonstrated to be carried with a double
motion, with prodigious velocity, through the heavens; the rising and
setting of the stars were proved to be an illusion; and, as respects the
size of the globe, it was shown to be altogether insignificant when
compared with multitudes of other neighbouring ones--insignificant
doubly by reason of its actual dimensions, and by the countless numbers
of others like it in form, and doubtless, like it, the abodes of many
orders of life.

And so it turns out that our earth is a globe of about twenty-five
thousand miles in circumference. The voyager who circumnavigates it
spends no inconsiderable portion of his life in accomplishing his task.
It moves round the sun in a year, but at so great a distance from that
luminary that, if seen from him, it would look like a little spark
traversing the sky. It is thus recognized as one of the me