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the compass of the solar system? There is a defect in Magnitude of the human intellect which incapacitates us for the universe. comprehending distances and periods that are either too colossal or too minute. We gain no clearer insight into the matter when we are told that a comet which does not pass beyond the bounds of the system may perhaps be absent on its journey for more than a thousand years. Distances and periods such as these are beyond our grasp. They prove to us how far human reason excels imagination, the one measuring and comparing things of which the other can form no conception, but in the attempt is utterly bewildered and lost.

But as there are other globes like our earth, so too there The infinity are other worlds like our solar system. There of worlds. are self-luminous suns exceeding in number all computation. The dimensions of this earth pass into nothingness in comparison with the dimensions of the solar system, and that system, in its turn, is only an invisible point if placed in relation with the countless hosts of other systems 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 inaninate things, suggesting to us that there are other intellectual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in the abysses of space.

may

Though it take a beam of light a million of 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 Insignificance system, from the solar system to the expanse of the group of stars to which we belong, we behold

of man.

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-honoured doctrine of the human destiny of the universe? that doctrine Triumph of for the sake of which the controversy I have scientific described in this chapter was raised. It has truth. 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.

CHAPTER IX.

THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON (Continued).

HISTORY OF THE EARTH.-HER SUCCESSIVE CHANGES IN THE COURSE OF TIME.

Oriental and Occidental Doctrines respecting the Earth in Time.Gradual Weakening of the latter by astronomical Facts, and the Rise of Scientific Geology.

Impersonal Manner in which the Problem was eventually solved, chiefly through Facts connected with Heat.

Proofs of limitless Duration from inorganic Facts.-Igneous and Aqueous Rocks.

Proofs of the same from organic Facts.-Successive Creations and Extinctions of living Forms, and their contemporaneous Distribution. Evidences of a slowly declining Temperature, and, therefore, of a long Time.-The Process of Events by Catastrophe and by Law.-Analogy of Individual and Race Development.-Both are determined by unchangeable Law.

Age of the

Conclusion that the Plan of the Universe indicates a Multiplicity of Worlds of infinite Space, and a Succession of Worlds in infinite Time. A VICTORY Could not be more complete nor a triumph more brilliant than that which had been gained by earth. science in the contest concerning the position of the earth. Though there followed closely thereupon an investigation of scarcely inferior moment-that respecting the age of the earth-so thoroughly was the ancient authority intellectually crushed that it found itself incapable of asserting by force the Patristic idea that our planet is less than six thousand years old.

The question

Not but that a resistance was made. It was, however, of an indirect kind. The contest might be is impersonal- likened rather to a partisan warfare than to the ly solved. deliberate movement of regular armies under recognized commanders. In its history there is no central

figure like Galileo, no representative man, no brilliant and opportune event like the invention of the telescope. The question moves on to its solution impersonally. A little advance is made here by one, there by another. The war was finished, though no great battle was fought. In the chapter we are entering upon there is, therefore, none of that dramatic interest connected with the last. Impersonally the question was decided, and, therefore, imper-. sonally I must describe it.

trines of the

In Oriental countries, where the popular belief assigns to the creation of man a very ancient date, and Oriental and even asserts for some empires a duration of Western dochundreds of thousands of years, no difficulty as age of the respects the age of the earth was felt, there earth. seeming to have been time enough for every event that human researches have detected to transpire. But in the West, where the doctrine that not only the earth, but the universe itself, was intended for man, has been carried to its consequences with exacting rigour, circumstances forbid us to admit that there was any needless delay between the preparation of the habitation and the introduction of the tenant. They also force upon us the conclusion that a few centuries constitute a very large portion of the time of human existence, since, if we adopt the doctrine of an almost limitless period, we should fall into a difficulty in explaining what has become of the countless myriads of generations in the long time so past, and, considering that we are taught that the end of the world is at hand, and must be expected in a few years at the most, we might seem to arraign the goodness of God in this, that He has left to their fate immeasurably the larger proportion of our race, and has restricted His mercy to us alone, who are living in the departing twilight of the evening of the world.

But in this, as in the former case, a closer examination of the facts brings us to the indisputable conclusion that we have decided unworthily and untruly; that Correction of our guiding doctrine of the universe being in- the European tended for us is a miserable delusion; that the scale on which the world is constructed as to time answers to that on which it is constructed as to space; that, as

doctrine.

respects our planet, its origin dates from an epoch too remote for our mental apprehension; that myriads of centuries have been consumed in its coming to its present state; that, by a slow progression, it has passed from stage to stage, uninhabited, and for a long time uninhabitable by any living thing; that in their proper order and in due lapse of time, the organic series have been its inhabitants, and of these a vast majority, whose numbers are so great that we cannot offer an intelligible estimate of them, have passed away and become extinct, and that finally, for a brief period, we have been its possessors.

Of the intentions of God it becomes us, therefore, to speak with reverence and reserve. In those ages when there was not a man upon the earth, what was the object? Was the twilight only given that the wolf might follow his fleeing prey, and the stars made to shine that the royal tiger might pursue his midnight maraudings? Where was the use of so much that was beautiful and orderly, when there was not a solitary intellectual being to understand and enjoy? Even now, when we are so much disposed to judge of other worlds from their apparent adaptedness to be the abodes of a thinking and responsible order like ourselves, it may be of service to remember that this earth itself was for countless ages a dungeon of pestiferous exhalations and a den of wild beasts.

It elevates rather than degrades the position of

man.

It might moreover appear that the conclusions to which we come, both as respects the position and age of the world, must necessarily have for their consequences the diminution and degradation of man, the rendering him tee worthless an object for God's regard. But here again we fall into an error. True, we have debased his animal value, and taught him how little he is-how insignificant are the evils, how vain the pleasures of his life. But, as respects his intellectual principle, how does the matter stand? What is it that has thus been measuring the terrestrial world, and weighing it in a balance? What is it that has been standing on the sun, and marking out the orbits and boundaries of the solar system? What is it that has descended into the infinite abysses of space, examined the countless worlds that they contain, and compared and contrasted them

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