"But all those things," he added earnestly, "all that I stand for to
the world, has really been of little importance to me. My main labor,
goal, dream, if you will, I have never told anyone--not a living person
except my children. For ten years past Brett has been helping me. And
though you would hardly believe it, for the last year or two Martt and
Frannie have been of material aid in the accomplishment of my purpose."
"What branch of science?" I asked. "And you've accomplished it? You're
ready to give it to the world?"
"Accomplished it--yes. But we are not ready to give it to the
world--perhaps we never shall. There would be evil in it--evil
diabolical--in untrained or unscrupulous hands. But we are ready to
test it--a practical test. Tonight, Frank, my boy Brett is going upon
an adventure----"
The fear which had been lurking in his eyes leaped to stamp his other
features. He was afraid for Brett--afraid of this thing they were going
to do. He had stopped abruptly; and more quietly he added:
"I want you to understand me, Frank, and so for a moment we must
be wholly theoretical. This thing we are about to do involves the
construction of our whole material universe. You know, of course, that
no limit has been found to the divisibility of matter?"
His sudden question confused me. "You mean," I stammered, "that things
can be infinitely small?"
"That there is no limit to smallness," Brett put in. "An atom--an
electron--they are mere words. Within them conceivably might be a
space with stars, planets, suns--worlds of their own so tiny that
compared to the Space in which they roam that Space would seem--and
would be--illimitable. Picture that, Frank. And picture upon one of
those worlds inhabitants of proportionate smallness. What would they
see, feel or think of the universe? Would they not conceive it about as
we do? Picture them with powerful microscopes, looking downward into
the matter composing their world. They would be aware of molecules,
atoms--they would gaze down into Space unending. Another realm within
their own. And within that one--others and yet others to infinity. The
conception confuses you, Frank? It need not. Each of those realms is
tiny--or large--according to the viewpoint. There can be no such thing
as absolute size."
"That is what I mean," Dr. Gryce interrupted eagerly. "Absolute
size--how can you conceive it? You can not. A thing is large or small
only in relation to something else smaller or larger."
He waved his hand to the rolling landscape with the morning light and
shadow upon it, visible through the arbor.
"There is our everyday world, Frank. How big is it? You can not say.
Millimeters, meters, kilometers, helans, light-years--those are only
words with which we designate a comparison. Compared to what our
microscopes show us, this world of ours is very large, but compared to
the spaces between the stars--the stars themselves--it is very small.
Try then to imagine its absolute size. You can not, because there is
no such thing. A universe within what we call an atom--another realm
within an atom of matter upon one of the worlds of _that_ universe--is
not an extraordinary state of smallness _until we compare it with
ourselves_.
"And this world of ours. It is normal to us; of no absolute size
whatever--neither large nor small--until we compare it to something
else. But suppose we visualize larger realms? Suppose we say these
planets, stars--all the starry universe within our ken and this visual
space which contains them--suppose we imagine all that to be contained
within the atom of a particle of matter of some comparatively still
larger realm? At once our world and ourselves shrink into smallness.
Where a moment ago we had seemed large, now we seem small. Yet that
other gigantic world within which we are contained--if we could live in
it our telescopes would show us still larger Space unending. We would
feel tiny--and of actuality _we would be tiny_--contemplating Space and
size so much larger."
"And there you have infinity of Space," Brett added, as his father
paused. "Unending Space both smaller and larger than ourselves.
We--everything of which we can be physically aware--represent no more
than a single step in the ladder which has no bottom nor no top. You
can not conceive an end in either direction. There is no such thing.
Nor--as Father says--can you declare anything to be small or large
considered by itself alone. This then is Space as we conceive it to be.
Illimitable, unending--infinite Space."
The conception momentarily seemed wholly beyond my grasp. What I would
have answered when for a moment Dr. Gryce and Brett paused I do not
know, for from the house the approaching voices of Martt and Frannie
reached us.
"You'll fall, I tell you! Frannie, give me that!"
"I won't."
"You'll trip over the wires and you'll fall and smash it!"
"I won't."