The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-07-02

panpnlet by Rev. John Piernon4 Al ~
combated the notion that matter v,as
created out of nothing. He said If mat.
Uer began absolutely then no time conld
elapse between its being and non bainor
1t would have to be something and
noUillng at the same time, which is an
aosurdlty. But do we not find onr.
serves In the same dilemma about tba
beginning OF anything, the beginning
OF the clock to strike or the fire. +o
ourn? The clock begins to strike. bnt
the beginning occupies no time: hence
~ must STRIKE and not strike at the same
time. The moments touch, there is NO
space between them. The sun rises
out where can thought get in between
the moment it is below the horizon and
the moment it is above? The two mo-
ments are one.
Inc old sophists used to prove that a
BODY cannot move. 1t cannot move
where it is, and it cannot move where
1t is not; but experience proves that IL
can move, as it were, on the line be
tween the two. In thought matter is
infinitely divisible, time is infinite
ly divisible; therefore bodies can.
not touch, therefore things cannot
begin, etc. But experience corrects
this reasoning and shows us bodies do
move, and do touch, and do begin.
we can conceive of degrees and diff
ferences, but limits, for the most part.
bafne US. We cannot conceive of any-
thing so hot but that it might be hot
ter, nor so cold but it might be colder.
Nothing SO high or big but that It
might be higher or bigger; nothing so
low or small but it might be lower or
smaller. Yet we can conceive of abso-
lutte darkness and absolute silence. In
mammoth cave l think I experience
both. Why we can conceive of abso-
lutte darkness and not of absolute cold.
90 not know. One reason why YOU
cannot convince an ignorant man that
the earth is round and turns round is
that his senses are stronger than his
reason; whereas in the trained mind
the reason always rules the senses.
When the senses declare so and so is
the TACT, the reason asks: Is it the fact?
Can it be the fact?
1t requires no little mental effort to
see that the earth is a sphere in the face
OF the fact that the eye all the time pro-
claims it to be plain, and that when it
revolves the top side will not be turned
under and the world capsized. There
is no u11der to the earth, because under
means toward the earth. If two worlds
should come in contact, then--a con-
ceivable thing-would the people upon
each see the other world overhead?
How otherwise? This contradiction
staggers the unreasoning mind, but we
see it must be so. 1t is terrible state of
affairs. Our notions are not merely
reversed, they are reduced to chaos,
like an arch in ruins. The earth and
Mars, for instance (supposing them to
be of the same size), approaching each
other and then colliding, the inhab-
ltants of each seeing the other growing
IN the sky above, and then the
shock of each planet falling upon
the other, and the impossible-to-con-
,eive state of affairs, with up and down
abolished; my neighbors mill-pond
overlaid by the mill-pond of miller of
Mars, and neither spilling out, and each
thinking his premises under
heath the other. We must not be mis-
ed by the image of two ships or two
yehicles coming alongside of each
)ther; there is no confusion or contra
liction to the senses here. To the case
suppose our experience affords no par
lllel; we can only see it by an effort of
he imagination, and we cannot at all
Idjust our senses to what our reason
ellis us must be the fact No wonder
his question of the rotundity and the |
evolution of the earth is so puzzlin g to |
ordinary people, and that the majority |
# even the educated accept it on trust.
Imagination, after all, cannot go be-
'ond experience. By no mental effort |
an we get away from this earth and
ealize our condition.
We cannot in imagination see the size
f the earth; we can only picture to
so much of its surface as we
ave seen from some mountain top, or
lse we see it as map, see it in minia-
ure. The mind cannot take in size
ny more than it can distance, except
S an abstraction; that is, it cannot get
vivid emotional sense of these things.
he mental vision is limited by the
ae physical vision. 1 cannot, for in
lance, see with my minds eye at one
lance the stretch of land that lies be-
yeen Albany and New York, except
y reducing the scale. The imagina-
on runs along from point to point, and
les like bird, and the landscape un-
dds before it.
Even this little planet upo which we
We is on such a huge scale that the
speed at which it moves
.ems like eternal rest. To the un-
mind it is pure fiction, be-
suse the senses find no evidence of it.
n still day row out into the midd die
the river, when the tide is setting
rongly up or down, and, resting up on
our oars, fix your eye upon the water
EAR you. Apparently all motion has
opped, the water is in perfect repose;
'op leaf upon it or one of your oars,
Id there is no motion. But lift your
re to the shore, and you see that you
e moving rapidly, that the whole
,dy of the water is sliding along and
.rrying you with it. Just so we should
,come aware of the motion of this
nth of ours if there was any near by