The Presidenfs Address. 279 



tion of the solar system which is nearest and dearest to us, the 

 cosmopolitan observatory, so to speak, from which the astrono- 

 mer is to survey the sidereal universe, where revolving worlds, 

 and systems of worlds, summon him to investigate and adore. 

 There, too, he obtains the great base lines of the earth's 

 radius to measure the distances and magnitudes of the 

 starry host, and thus to penetrate, by the force of reason, 

 into those infinitely distant regions where the imagination 

 dare not follow him. But astronomy, though thus sprung 

 from the earth, seeks and finds, like Astraea, a more con- 

 genial sphere above. Whatever cheers and enlivens our ter- 

 restrial paradise is derived from the orbs around us. With- 

 out the light or heat of our sun, and without the uniform 

 movements of our system, we should have neither climates 

 nor seasons. Darkness would blind, and famine destroy 

 everything that lives. Without influences from above, our 

 ships would drift upon the ocean, the sport of wind and 

 wave, and would have less security of reaching their desti- 

 nation than balloons floating in the air, and subject to the 

 caprice of the elements. But while the study of Astronomy 

 is essential to the very existence of social life, it is instinct 

 with moral influences of the highest order. In the study of 

 our own globe we learn that it has been rent and upheaved 

 by tremendous forces — here sinking into ocean depths, and 

 there rising into gigantic elevations. Even now geologists 

 are measuring the rise and fall of its elastic crust, and men 

 who have no faith in science often learn the truth to their 

 cost, when they see the liquid fire rushing upon them from 

 the volcano, or stand above the yawning crevice in which 

 the earthquake threatens to overwhelm them. Who can say 

 that there is a limit to agencies like these ? Who could dare 

 to assert that they may not concentrate their yet divided 

 energies, and rend in pieces the planet which imprisons them ? 

 Within the bounds of our own system, and in the vicinity of 

 our own earth, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter there is 

 a wide space which, according to the law of planetary distance, 

 ought to contain a planet. Kepler predicted that a planet 

 would be found there — and strange to say, the astronomers 

 of our own times discovered at the beginning of the present 

 century four small planets, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, 



