down
to our days. This personal God, like to ourselves in His shape and
passions, is an artificer of gigantic capacity, who worked six days
and made everything existing. On the first day He created light, and
on the fourth the sun and stars; from whence then came that light if
the sun had not then been created? Is there any distinction between
one and the other? It seems impossible that such absurdities should
have been credited for centuries."

The listeners nodded their heads in assent; the absurdity appeared to
them palpable--as it always did when Gabriel spoke.

"If you wish to penetrate the heavens," continued Luna, "you must get
rid of the human conception of distance. Man measures everything by
his own stature, and he conceives dimensions by the distance his eyes
can reach. This Cathedral seems to us enormous because underneath its
naves we seem like ants; but, nevertheless, the Cathedral seen from
far is only an insignificant wart; compared with the piece of land we
call Spain it is less than a grain of sand, and on the face of the
earth it is a mere atom--nothing. Our sight makes us consider thirty
or forty yards a dizzy height. At this moment we think we are very
high because we are near the roof of the Cathedral, but compared to
the infinite this height is as small as when an ant balances on the
top of a pebble not knowing how to come down. Our sight is short, and
we who can only measure by yards, and apprehend short distances, must
make an immense effort of imagination to realise infinity. Even then
it escapes us and we speak of it very often as of a thing that has no
meaning. How shall I make you understand the immensity of the world?
You must not believe, as our ancestors did, that the earth is flat
and stationary and that the heaven is a crystal dome on which God has
fastened the stars like golden nails, and in which the sun and moon
move to give us light, you must understand that the earth is round,
and whirls round in space."

"Yes, we do know a little about that," said the bell-ringer
doubtfully, "for we were taught so at school. But, really, do you
think it moves?"

"Because in your littleness as human beings, because to our
microscopic mole-like sight the immense mechanism of the world is
lost, do not for a moment doubt it. The earth turns. Without moving
from where you are, in twenty-four hours you will have made the
complete circuit with the globe. Without moving our feet we rush along
at the