Article October 9, 1909 Issue

THE IMPORTANCE OF A RIGHT POINT OF VIEW

FRANK H. SPRAGUE.

So fixed in the thought of the ancients was the mental picture of a flat earth, that their mistaken theory of the solar system passed unchallenged in the face of indications which, to the more enlightened sense of today, enforce an altogether different conclusion. The object-lessons furnished by the gradual disappearance of receding ships below the horizon, the curvature of the earth's shadow as it falls across the moon during an eclipse, and other equally significant natural phenomena, were insufficient to loose belief from its traditional moorings in a radically wrong concept of the solar system, and turn inquiry in the direction of more rational interpretations.

As the imaginative thinker pictures the movements of the heavenly bodies comprehensively from a standpoint far removed in space, it seems to him fairly incredible that intelligent and learned observers should have allowed the astronomical fact to be so obscured by an illusion of the senses. And yet, a similar state of affairs still prevails to quite an extent in the religious world. As we survey Christendom, with its scores of opposing sects, each claiming Scriptural authority for its distinctive theological views, we may well marvel at the obtuseness of mortal mind and the self complacency with which it regards its own finite, ever shifting opinions. It is self-evident that all these differing sects and conflicting creeds cannot derive their sanction from the teaching of the Bible. Nevertheless, each exponent of the Scriptures professes to be satisfied with the correctness of his peculiar interpretation and the untenableness of all contrary views.

Such is the chaos of human belief. The fact is, the abnormal and erratic position of human mentality offers an unlimited number of possible points of observation, from each of which a different impression of things is obtainable. A suggestive hint of this circumstance may be had by following out the illustration just cited from the domain of solar physics. To the observer at the earth's equator the sun appears to cross the zenith in its course and the entire galaxy of the starry heavens to pass over the earth in daily revolution. As the observer moves in the direction of either pole, however, the celestial aspect changes. The sun no longer touches the zenith, and a portion only of the starry firmament appears above the horizon. The nearer he approaches the pole the more the scene changes, until at length the sun is visible continuously above the horizon, ascending slowly in a spiral orbit, and descending again until it disappears below the horizon for another long period. Moreover, from the standpoint at either pole but one half, approximately, of the stellar panorama is ever visible.

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