Periphery

“ And as we lifted higher and higher the circle changed before our eyes into a sphere—a tremendous, faintly glowing sphere of size inconceivable, filling the heavens with its vast bulk, feebly luminous like the ghost of some mighty sun, rushing through space to meet us as we sped up and over it. ”

“ Or, to vary the illustration, if from the depths of a forest we glimpse a fragment of the remote horizon, and mentally complete the circle in accordance with that arc, our ring will not even be the ring of the meeting of earth and sky encompassing our standpoint; ours will be all shipless sea or green valley-bottom, while the true horizon would be sea and shore, vale and river, wood and hill, abounding with various life. ”

“ There is the mighty axis of Earth, The never-resting pole of Heaven; Let us grasp their clue, And with them be blended in One, Beyond the bounds of thought, Circling for ever in the great Void, An orbit of a thousand years,— Yes, this is the key to my theme. ”

“ Even in visible nature does not every minutest point of space reflect as a microcosm the macrocosm of earth and heaven? This minute point of space occupied by my eye as I stand on the mountain has poured into it endless vistas of manifolded mountains, vales, woods, cities, glittering seas, clouds and an infinite blueness. ”

“ When we pass from the tame and narrow scenery of our own country, and stand on those spots of earth in which nature puts on her wilder and more awful forms, we are conscious of something of the grandeur which belongs to the thought of space. Go where the strong foundations of the earth lie around you in their massive majesty, and mountain after mountain rears its snow to heaven in a giant chain, and then, when this bursts upon you for the first time in life, there is that peculiar feeling which we call, in common language, an enlargement of ideas. ”

“ Objects become Smaller as they Recede to say, in the foreground—are largest; the things in the middle, or middle distance, are smallest. And to explain these apparently simple facts we must exerecise our wits. You know that when you stand on the seashore and look seaward the extent of your vision is bounded by the meeting of the sea and sky, which boundary is called the horizon. The horizon is the line that follows the line of your eyes, the boundary line. ”

“ Within the great circle of the heavens, the earth, revolving upon its axis and gliding along its orbit, is but as a very small wheel in the great machinery of the fathomless and limitless universe, while to our short range of view it appears great and wonderful above all others of the worlds which float in the immensity of space. ”

“ Others thought the earth was a sphere because “the sphere is the most perfect form; it was the center of the universe because that is the place of honor; and it is motionless, because motion is less dignified than rest.” Some believed that the earth is round and rests upon the ocean. ”

“ All, therefore, who hold that the heaven is in the form of a sphere, say that it is equally removed and distant from the earth at all points, whether above, or sideways, or below. And by ‘below’ and ‘sideways’ I mean all that comes within the range of our senses. For it follows from what has been said, that the heaven occupies the whole of the upper region and the earth the whole of the lower. ”

“ People who live in high mountain-regions, and never look upon extensive plains, regard the earth as a sublime range, a massive dome in which peak towers above peak, as the Caucasians do, or as a lofty cone, like the Thibetans. On conceptions like these stand those religious systems which place the seat of the gods, the first home of the human race, or the abode of the dead, among lofty mountains. ”

“ Space that was not Space: I was myself, and not myself. When I could find voice, I shrieked aloud in agony, “Either this is madness or it is Hell.” “It is neither,” calmly replied the voice of the Sphere, “it is Knowledge; it is Three Dimensions: open your eye once again and try to look steadily.” ”

“ Again, imagine our earth, a point in this system, shooting through universal space at the rate of a falling star, and rotating on its axis from morning to night, from night to morning—"mountain and sea borne along in the ever-rapid course of the spheres." ”

“ They saw, in vision, that a little nucleus here in the mountains would arise, and that the mountain of the Lord's house would be established above the hills, and that all nations should flock to the standard, as doves to their windows. ”

“ Hitherto the sidereal heavens have, not inadequately for the purpose designed, been represented by the concave surface of a sphere in the centre of which the eye of an observer might be supposed to be placed.... ”

“ First comes the immense surrounding space—a space measured in each arc of the circumference by sections of at least fifty miles, limited by points of exquisitely picturesque beauty, including distant cloud-like mountain ranges and crystals of sky-blue Apennines, circumscribing landscapes of refined loveliness in detail, always varied, always marked by objects of peculiar interest where the eye or memory may linger. ”

“ The heaven bendeth and inclineth toward the centre, but the earth goeth from the centre, whiles the world with continuall volubilitie and turning about it, driveth the huge and excessive globe thereof into the forme of a round ball. ”

“ Is there not beyond the sky above us a region to which our imperfect vision cannot penetrate, but which may be accessible to them from the peaks of elevated mountains, or to be reached only with wings? ”

“ For you have known that the universe is called a sphere by several astrologers, its center the center of the earth, and its radius equal to a line drawn from the center of the sun to the center of the earth. ”

“ Imagine a great sphere to be described with its centre at our earth, and with a radius extending all the way from the earth to this last star knowable by man. Every star that we can see, every star whose existence becomes disclosed to us on our photographs, lies inside this sphere; as to the orbs which may lie outside that sphere we can know nothing by direct observation. ”

“ They passed, dispersed and swift about the entire landscape, a very part of it, diffused in terms of light and air and color, scattered in radiance, distributed through flowers, spread through the sky and grass and forests. Space is a form of thought. ”

“ Owing to our former surroundings upon the surface of the earth, and to your inheritance of a so-called instinctive education, you would naturally suppose that we are now on the brink of an impassable chasm. This sphere of material vacuity extends beneath us to a depth that I am sure you will be astonished to learn is over six thousand miles. We may now look straight into the earth cavity, and this streaming light is the reflected purity of the space below. ”

“ Let C be the earth's centre, O the place of the observer, and H D the rational horizon passing through the centre of the earth. For an object situated near the earth, as at A, the sensible horizon makes a large angle with the rational horizon. ”

“ Here, then, is the function of mountains in relation to human life. To every one there is opened (if he knows it) his own doorway for stepping out into space—for detaching himself for a time from the heavy environment of customary thought. ”

“ The surface of the sun—how much more the interior!—is an appalling cauldron of incandescent matter from pole to pole. Every yard of the surface is a hundred times as intense as the open furnace of a Titanic. ”

“ When the foundations of the earth were laid, we know who it was that “measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance;” ”

“ All astronomy, astrology, geography, cosmography, botany, natural history, palmistry are more or less the tracing of the lines of the labyrinth, our playful attempts to follow out the mystical maze of natural phenomena.
The lines which men trace in their goings to and fro upon the world are part of the mystical tracery, so also are the tracks of the clouds, the outlines of coasts, the ramifications of the lines of rocks. ”

“ But what this central Body really is, I shall not here presume to say, yet I can't help observing it must of Necessity, if the Creation is real and not merely Ideal, be either a Globe of Fire superior to the Sun, or otherwise a vast terraqueous or terrestrial Sphere, surrounded with an Æther like our Earth, but more refined, transparent and serene. ”

“ For in these the hollow convexity everywhere bends on itself, and leans upon the earth as its centre. Whereas the earth rises up solid and dense, like something that swells up and is protruded outwards. The heavens bend towards the centre, while the earth goes from the centre, the continual rolling of the heavens about it forcing its immense globe into the form of a sphere. ”

“ The imagination doubtless suggests with irresistible emphasis, that this outer region is also occupied by stars and nebulae, suns and worlds, in the same manner as the interior of that mighty sphere whose contents are more or less accessible to our scrutiny. ”

“ Then would I take you from the table-land to the mountain, where we descend into deep canons that compare in their strange beauty with any in the world; the queer separation of the earth, not more than 100 feet from edge to edge of precipice, but 400 feet deep. ”

“ If I were awakened from a deep sleep, I should know which side of the meridian the sun might be by the aspect of nature, and by the chirp of the crickets, and yet no painter can paint this difference. The landscape contains a thousand dials which indicate the natural divisions of time, the shadows of a thousand styles point to the hour. ”

“ An unseen guide explained to him the fourfold division of the universe and the boundaries of its provinces. High above all is the sphere of the One and the Invisible. Next in order is the region of pure mind, of which the Sun is lord. The third is the debatable land between pure intelligence and the sensible and mortal—the region of soul, whose mistress is the moon. ”

“ The earth itself is composed of four grand bodies: an outer envelope of air or atmosphere, a middle envelope of water or hydrosphere, an inner envelope of rock or lithosphere, and the grand central nucleus or centrosphere. ”

“ The region designed for the existence of man, and of every other creature endowed with organic life, as well as the sphere open to the preception of man's senses, is confined to a limited space between the upper and lower parts of the earth, exceedingly small in proportion to the diameter, or even semi-diameter of the earth, and forming only the exterior surface, or outer skin, of the great body of the earth. ”

“ Next in importance to this immensity of space, so powerfully affecting the imagination by its mere extent, and by the breadth of atmosphere attuning all varieties of form and colour to one harmony beneath illimitable heaven, may be reckoned the episodes of rivers, lakes, hills, cities, with old historic names. ”

“ Imperceptible in themselves, the heights become perceptible by their shadows. A road illuminated by a distant arc light gives us a startling instance of this; the smooth surface taking on from its shadows the look of a ploughed field. ”

“ In one sense, then, we call 'heaven' the substance of the extreme circumference of the whole, or that natural body whose place is at the extreme circumference. We recognize habitually a special right to the name 'heaven' in the extremity or upper region, which we take to be the seat of all that is divine. ”

“ Know the mind to contain every thing in its clear sphere, such as time and space, the clear sky, and all actions and motions and positions of things; as the area of a map presents the sites of all places upon its surface. ”

“ We could, at length, realize the place mountains occupy on the land, and how they come into the general scheme of the universe. When first we climb their summits and observe their lesser irregularities, we do not give credit to the comprehensive intelligence which shaped them; but when afterward we behold their outlines in the horizon, we confess that the hand which moulded their opposite slopes, making one to balance the other, worked round a deep centre, and was privy to the plan of the universe. ”

“ The core of the universe consists not only of this central globe with everything in or upon it, but also of the atmosphere or, more correctly, of all which extends between the surface of the globe and the nearest of the distant revolving hollow spheres of heaven, in some of which spheres are set the heavenly bodies. ”

“ Simply by that science of the geographer which demonstrates that the earth is not flat, but spherical, and that the heavens have not edges, like a skin-tent or glass-case, to come anywhere in contact with it, but consist mainly of a diffused atmosphere, with illimitable space beyond. ”

“ In my next lecture I shall begin with the question of Spirit-spheres, and endeavor to unfold to the consciousness of each of you the evidence of the existence of a first sphere, from which you will all do well to escape; and shall then proceed to prove the existence of other spheres, namely, the second, or relational sphere, and a third, or divine sphere. I invite skeptics and atheists in particular to be particularly captious. ”

“ But when we seek in imagination to follow out this curved surface as it actually exists, slowly bending round until all its meridians meet in a point eight thousand miles below our feet, we find ourselves utterly baffled. ”

“ It is our sphere—beautiful, glorious, almost infinite in its possibilities. We accept the work; we only ask for opportunity to perform it. The sphere has enlarged, that is all. There has been a new revelation. ”

“ If you was to be carried up to any of these bodies at this vast distance from us, you would still discover others as much above you, as the stars that you see here are above the earth. Were you to go up or down, east or west, north or south, you would find the same height without any top, and the same depth without any bottom. ”