he story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpart of that
story, the death of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise, that is,
to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous
as what we call stars, renders the christian system of faith at once
little and ridiculous; and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the
air. The two beliefs can not be held together in the same mind; and he
who thinks that he believes both, has thought but little of either.

Though the belief of a plurality of worlds was familiar to the
ancients, it is only within the last three centuries that the extent and
dimensions of this globe that we inhabit have been ascertained. Several
vessels, following the tract of the ocean, have sailed entirely round
the world, as a man may march in a circle, and come round by the
contrary side of the circle to the spot he set out from. The circular
dimensions of our world, in the widest part, as a man would measure the
widest round of an apple, or a ball, is only twenty-five thousand and
twenty English miles, reckoning sixty-nine miles and an half to an
equatorial degree, and may be sailed round in the space of about three
years. [NOTE by Paine: Allowing a ship to sail, on an average, three
miles in an hour, she would sail entirely round the world in less than
one year, if she could sail in a direct circle, but she is obliged to
follow the course of the ocean.--Author.]

A world of this extent may, at first thought, appear to us to be
great; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which it is
suspended, like a bubble or a balloon in the air, it is infinitely less
in proportion than the smallest grain of sand is to the size of
the world, or the finest particle of dew to the whole ocean, and is
therefore but small; and, as will be hereafter shown, is only one of a
system of worlds, of which the universal creation is composed.

It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the immensity of space
in which this and all the other worlds are suspended, if we follow a
progression of ideas. When we think of the size or dimensions of, a
room, our ideas limit themselves to the walls, and there they stop.
But when our eye, or our imagination darts into space, that is, when
it looks upward into what we call the open air, we cannot conceive any
walls or boundaries it can have; and if for the sake of resting our
ideas we suppose a boundary, the question immediately renews itself, and