As a matter of fact, of
course, a shot fired at an elephant does actually often travel towards
the marksman, but much slower than the marksman travels. Mr. Scott
probably would not like to contemplate the fact that the elephant,
properly speaking, swings round and hits the bullet. To us it appears
full of a rich cosmic humour.
I will only give one other example of the astronomical proofs:
'If the earth were a globe, the distance round the surface, say, at 45
degrees south latitude, could not possibly be any greater than the same
latitude north; but since it is found by navigators to be twice the
distance--to say the least of it--or double the distance it ought to be
according to the globular theory, it is a proof that the earth is not a
globe.'
This sort of thing reduces my mind to a pulp. I can faintly resist when
a man says that if the earth were a globe cats would not have four
legs; but when he says that if the earth were a globe cats would not
have five legs I am crushed.
But, as I have indicated, it is not in the scientific aspect of this
remarkable theory that I am for the moment interested. It is rather with
the difference between the flat and the round worlds as conceptions in
art and imagination that I am concerned.
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