Let us try then, step by step, to localise the source of our disquiet, eliminating the illegitimate causes of disturbance till we find the exact site of the pain at which the remedy, if there is one, should be applied. In the first and most widespread degree, the ' malady of space-rime ' manifests itself as a rule by a feeling of futility, of being crushed by the enormities of the cosmos.
The enormity of space is the most tangible and thus the most frightening aspect.
Which of us has ever in his life really had the courage to look squarely at and try to ' live ' a universe formed of galaxies whose distance apart runs into hundreds of thousands of light years ? which of us, having tried, has not emerged from the ordeal shaken in one or other of his beliefs ?
And who, even when trying to shut his eyes as best he can to what the astronomers implacably put before us, has not had a confused sensation of a gigantic shadow passing over the serenity of his joy ?
Enormity of duration-sometimes having the effect
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