Page 1758 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

myself the rotation of the earth, and I’m right in saying
that the stars move.
‘And could the astronomers have understood and
calculated anything, if they had taken into account all the

complicated and varied motions of the earth? All the
marvelous conclusions they have reached about the
distances, weights, movements, and deflections of the
heavenly bodies are only founded on the apparent motions
of the heavenly bodies about a stationary earth, on that
very motion I see before me now, which has been so for
millions of men during long ages, and was and will be
always alike, and can always be trusted. And just as the
conclusions of the astronomers would have been vain and
uncertain if not founded on observations of the seen
heavens, in relation to a single meridian and a single
horizon, so would my conclusions be vain and uncertain if
not founded on that conception of right, which has been
and will be always alike for all men, which has been
revealed to me as a Christian, and which can always be
trusted in my soul. The question of other religions and
their relations to Divinity I have no right to decide, and
no possibility of deciding.’

1757 of 1759