Note 103 — XII.

I here assume the life-history of the globe to be represented by a straight line, because I cannot prove it to be a circle. I cannot even imagine its circularity. I do not mean the possibility;—I can imagine that: but the mode I cannot conceive. This, however, does not disprove the possibility. If man's science extended not beyond the accumulated observations of his own life, he would probably be quite incompetent to conceive how the life-history of such a tree as the Oak could be a circle; if he had never seen more than one individual, which was a tree when he was born, and continued to flourish till his death.