CHAPTER XXXIX.
Wherein Babbalanja Discourses Of Himself An interval of silence was at last broken by Babbalanja.
Pointing to the sun, just gaining the horizon, he exclaimed, "As old Bardianna says--shut your eyes, and believe." "And what may Bardianna have to do with yonder orb ?" said Media.
This much, my lord, the astronomers maintain that Mardi moves round the sun; which I, who never formally investigated the matter for myself, can by no means credit; unless, plainly seeing one thing, I blindly believe another.

Yet even thus blindly does all Mardi subscribe to an astronomical system, which not one in fifty thousand can astronomically prove.

And not many centuries back, my lord, all Mardi did equally subscribe to an astronomical system, precisely the reverse of that which they now believe.

But the mass of Mardians have not as much reason to believe the first system, as the exploded one; for all who have eyes must assuredly see, that the sun seems to move, and that Mardi seems a fixture, eternally _here_.

But doubtless there are theories which may be true, though the face of things belie them.
Hence, in such cases, to the ignorant, disbelief would seem more natural than faith; though they too often reject the testimony of their own senses, for what to them, is a mere hypothesis.