The large proportion of the human race which is afflicted with "Self
Importance" can draw pointed conclusion from the facts that:
(1) Michelson the scientist has discovered an accurate method of
measuring the distant stars, by which it is determined that one star in
Orion is _twenty-seven trillion times as large as the earth_, and
twenty-seven million times as large as the Sun. (It's no use trying to
visualize this tremendous planet. Even a _billion_ is incomprehensible
to the human mind; a _trillion_ simply cannot be embraced in our
thought.)
(2) Latest available figures indicate that there are about _two billion
people living on the Earth_, despite the slaughter of war. We are
somewhere in that crowd.
If we ever feel ourselves getting "chesty in the head," let us repress
even the faintest stirrings of Egotism, for we're only one in two
billion (never would be missed!) riding to an unticketed destination on
a "pin-point planet" that swirls every day a million miles nearer to
that gigantic sun, _Alpha Orionus_ (see it any clear night in the
heavens) which is so tremendous in dimension that our poor little earth
at the instant of contact would sputter out like a tiny drop of grease
on a big stove.