Insignificance of man.Thus extending our view from the earth to the solar system, from the solar system to the expanse of the group of stars to which we belong, we [293] behold a series of gigantic nebular creations rising up one after another, and forming greater and greater colonies of worlds. No numbers can express them, for they make the firmament a haze of stars. Uniformity, even though it be the uniformity of magnificence, tires at last, and we abandon the survey, for our eyes can only behold a boundless prospect, and conscience tells us our own unspeakable insignificance.
Triumph of scientific truth.But what has become of the time-honoured doctrine of the human destiny of the universe? that doctrine for the sake of which the controversy I have described in this chapter was raised. It has disappeared. In vain was Bruno burnt and Galileo imprisoned; the truth forced its way, in spite of all opposition, at last. The end of the conflict was a total rejection of authority and tradition, and the adoption of scientific truth.
CHAPTER IX. THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON—(Continued). HISTORY OF THE EARTH.—HER SUCCESSIVE CHANGES IN THE COURSE OF TIME.
Oriental and Occidental Doctrines respecting the Earth in Time.—Gradual Weakening of the latter by astronomical Facts, and the Rise of Scientific Geology.
Impersonal Manner in which the Problem was eventually solved, chiefly through Facts connected with Heat.
Proofs of limitless Duration from inorganic Facts.—Igneous and Aqueous Rocks.
Proofs of the same from organic Facts.—Successive Creations and Extinctions of living Forms, and their contemporaneous Distribution.
Evidences of a slowly declining Temperature, and, therefore, of a long Time.—The Process of Events by Catastrophe and by Law.—Analogy of Individual and Race Development.—Both are determined by unchangeable Law.
Conclusion that the Plan of the Universe indicates a Multiplicity of Worlds of infinite Space, and a Succession of Worlds in infinite Time.
Age of the earth.[294] A victory could not be more complete nor a triumph more brilliant than that which had been gained by science in the contest concerning the position of the earth. Though there followed closely thereupon an investigation of scarcely inferior moment—that respecting the age of the earth—so thoroughly was the ancient authority intellectually crushed that it found itself incapable of asserting by force the Patristic idea that our planet is less than six thousand years old.