ds that they contain, and
compared and contrasted them together? What is it that has shown itself
capable of dealing with magnitudes that are infinite, even of comparing
infinites together! What is it that has not hesitated to trace things in
their history through a past eternity, and been found capable of
regarding equally the transitory moment and endless duration? That which
is competent to do all this, so far from being degraded, rises before us
with an air of surpassing grandeur and inappreciable worth. It is the
soul of man.

[Sidenote: Relations of the earth in time.] From the facts given in the
last chapter respecting the relations of the earth in space, we are next
led to her relations in time.

So long as science was oppressed with the doctrine of the human destiny
of the universe, which, as its consequence, made this earth the great
central body, and elevated man to supreme importance, there was much
difficulty in treating the problem of the age of the world. The history
of the earth was at first a wild and fictitious cosmogony. Scientific
cosmogony arose, not from any theological considerations, but from the
telescopic ascertainment of the polar compression of the planet Jupiter,
and the consequent determination by Newton that the earth is a spheroid
of revolution. With a true cosmogony came a better chronology.
[Sidenote: Anthropocentric ideas of the beginning and end of the world.]
The patristic doctrine had been that the earth came into existence but
little more than five thousand years ago, and to this a popular opinion
long current was added, that its end might be very shortly expected.
From time to time periods were set by various authorities determining
the latter event, and, as true knowledge was extinguished, the year 1000
came to be the universally appointed date. In view of this, it was not
an uncommon thing for persons to commence their testamentary bequests
with the words, "In expectation of the approaching end of the world."
But the tremendous moment passed by, and still the sun rose and set,
still the seasons were punctual in their courses, and Nature wore her
accustomed aspect. A later day was then predicted, and again and again
disappointment ensued, until sober-minded men began to perceive that the
Scriptures were never intended to give information on such subjects, and
predictions of the end of the world fell into discredit, abandoned to
the illiterate, whose morbid anticipations they sti