ican theory, and
to recognise the real minuteness of the earth both in space and time.
They more quickly recognised the earth's insignificance in space,
because the new theory absolutely forced this fact upon them. If the
earth, whose globe they knew to be minute compared with her distance
from the sun, is really circling around the sun in a mighty orbit many
millions of miles in diameter, it follows of necessity that the fixed
stars must lie so far away that even the span of the earth's orbit is
reduced to nothing by comparison with the vast depths beyond which lie
even the nearest of those suns. This was Tycho Brahe's famous and
perfectly sound argument against the Copernican theory. 'The stars
remain fixed in apparent position all the time, yet the Copernicans tell
us that the earth from which we view the stars is circling once a year
in an orbit many millions of miles in diameter; how is it that from so
widely ranging a point of view we do not see widely different celestial
scenery? Who can believe that the stars are so remote that by comparison
the span of the earth's path is a mere point?' Tycho's argument was of
course valid.[31] Of two things one. Either the earth does not travel
round the sun, or the stars are much farther away than men had conceived
possible in Tycho's time. His mistake lay in rejecting the correct
conclusion because simply it made the visible universe seem many
millions of times vaster than he had supposed. Yet the universe, even as
thus enlarged, was but a point to the universe visible in our day, which
in turn will dwindle to a point compared with the universe as men will
see it a few centuries hence; while that or the utmost range of space
over which men can ever extend their survey is doubtless as nothing to
the real universe of occupied space.

Such has been the progression of our ideas as to the position of the
earth in space. Forced by the discoveries of Copernicus to regard our
earth as a mere point compared with the distances of the nearest fixed
stars, men gradually learned to recognise those distances which at first
had seemed infinite as in their turn evanescent even by comparison with
that mere point of space over which man is able by instrumental means to
extend his survey.

Though there has been a similar progression in men's ideas as to the
earth's position in time, that progression has not been carried to a
corresponding extent. Men have not been so bold in widening their
c