ever
since men first found that animals and trees are developed from the
germ. The region of development is larger, the period of development
lasts longer, but neither the one nor the other is infinite; and being
finite, both one and the other are simply nothing by comparison with
infinity. It is a startling thought, doubtless, that periods of time
compared with which the life of a man, the existence of a nation, nay,
the duration of the human race itself, sink into insignificance, should
themselves in turn be dwarfed into nothingness by comparison with
periods of a still higher order. But the thought is not more startling
than that other thought which we have been compelled to admit--the
thought that the earth on which we live, and the solar system to which
it belongs, though each so vast that all known material objects are as
nothing by comparison, are in turn as nothing compared with the depths
of space separating us from even the nearest among the fixed stars. One
thought, as I have said, we have been compelled to admit, the other has
not as yet been absolutely forced upon us. Though men have long since
given up the idea that the earth and heavens have endured but a few
thousand years, it is still possible to believe that the birth of our
solar system, whether by creative act or by the beginning of processes
of development, belongs to the beginning of all time. But this view
cannot be regarded as even probable. Although it has never been proved
that any definite relation must subsist between time (occupied by
events) and space (occupied by matter), the mind naturally accepts the
belief that such a relation exists. As we find the universe enlarging
under the survey of science, our conceptions of the duration of the
universe enlarge also. When the earth was supposed to be the most
important object in creation, men might reasonably assign to time itself
(regarded as the interval between the beginning of the earth and the
consummation of all things when the earth should perish) a moderate
duration; but it is equally reasonable that, as the insignificance of
the earth's domain in space is recognised, men should recognise also the
presumable insignificance of the earth's existence in time.

In this respect, although we have nothing like the direct evidence
afforded by the measurement of space, we yet have evidence which can
scarcely be called in question. We find in the structure of our earth
the signs of its former condi