Part 20

May we not receive even the teachings of science, as to the “Laws of Nature,” with the constant memory that all we know, even from science itself, depends on our very limited sensations, our very limited experience, and our still more limited power of conceiving anything for which this experience has not prepared us?

* * * * *

I have read somewhere a story about a race of ephemeral insects who live but an hour. To those who are born in the early morning the sunrise is the time of youth. They die of old age while his beams are yet gathering force, and only their descendants live on to midday; while it is another race which sees the sun decline, from that which saw him rise. Imagine the sun about to set, and the whole nation of mites gathered under the shadow of some mushroom (to them ancient as the sun itself) to hear what their wisest philosopher has to say of the gloomy prospect. If I remember aright, he first told them that, incredible as it might seem, there was not only a time in the world’s youth when the mushroom itself was young, but that the sun in those early ages was in the eastern, not in the western, sky. Since then, he explained, the eyes of scientific ephemera had followed it, and established by induction from vast experience the great “Law of Nature,” that it moved only westward; and he showed that since it was now nearing the western horizon, science herself pointed to the conclusion that it was about to disappear forever, together with the great race of ephemera for whom it was created.

What his hearers thought of this discourse I do not remember, but I have heard that the sun rose again the next morning.

INDEX.

Abbe, Professor, 56.

Actinism, 71.

Adams, Professor, 195.

Africa, 116.

Ages, stellar, 238.

Air: dancing, 17; a medium, 33; continuous, 176; rarefied, 179; motes, 181; nimble, 191. (See Atmosphere.)

Airless Mountains, 160.

Air-wave, 185.

Aitken’s Researches, 181.

Alaska, 38.

Aldebaran, 222, 235, 236, 246.

Algot, 228.

Allegheny Observatory, 17, 19, 84, 86. (See Langley.)

Alphonsus Ring-plain, 156.

Alps, 39, 148, 151, 167, 181. (See Apennines, Lunar.)

American Astronomers, 227.

American Continents, 20, 21, 31. (See South.)

Andalusia, 53.

Animalculæ, 224.

Animals: food, 74; fright, 42. (See Dog.)

Antares, 238.

Ants, 223. (See Insects.)

Apennines, 151, 153, 155, 160, 167. (See Alps, Lunar.)