It is only a step from the earth to
the moon. What are 240,000 miles in comparison with the distances of the
stars, or even with the distances of the planets? Jupiter, driving
between the earth and the moon, would occupy more than one third of the
intervening space with the chariot of his mighty globe; Saturn, with
broad wings outspread, would span more than two thirds of the distance;
and the sun, so far from being able to get through at all, would overlap
the way more than 300,000 miles on each side.
In consequence, of course, of its nearness, the moon is the only member
of the planetary system whose principal features are visible to the
naked eye. In truth, the naked eye perceives the larger configurations
of the lunar surface more clearly than the most powerful telescope shows
the details on the disk of Mars. Long before the time of Galileo and the
invention of the telescope, men had noticed that the face of the moon
bears a resemblance to the appearance that the earth would present if
viewed from afar off. In remote antiquity there were philosophers who
thought that the moon was an inhabited world, and very early the
romancers took up the theme. Lucian, the Voltaire of the second century
of our era, mercilessly scourged the pretenders of the earth from an
imaginary point of vantage on the moon, which enabled him to peer down
into their secrets. Lucian's description of the appearance of the earth
from the moon shows how clearly defined in his day had become the
conception of our globe as only an atom in space.
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