ON THE INFLUENCB OF COMETS 221 



the close connection and mutual dependance of all classes of animate 

 and inanimate beings upon the surface of the earth, is too familiar 

 to require illustration : and may we not admit a similar interchange 

 of necessary and kindly influences among the various bodies which 

 are grouped in the same system, or even dispersed throughout space ? 

 But they are not in contact — the objector may assert. Neither is 

 the magnet in contact with the needle which it attracts, nor the 

 moon with the ocean which it rules, nor the sun with the earth 

 which it vivifies and cheers. Even were we ignorant of any influ- 

 ences which could be transmitted through the immense distances 

 around us, what is distance in the hand of the Creator, who 

 " stretcheth out the lieavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out 

 as a tent to dwell in ?''* But while we perceive that light, and 

 heat, and gravitation, are continually penetrating through spaces of 

 wonderful extent, and the effect of the former, in particular, is sen- 

 sensible at distances that are almost beyond all assignable limits, how 

 can we venture to assert, in positive terms, that no other influence, 

 at present unknown to us, is capable of traversing the same exten- 

 sion, and operating as independently of contact or proximity? — 

 The transmission of light and heat from the sun, was obvious to 

 the earliest inhabitants of the earth; but century after century 

 passed away, and the universal principle, which governs alike the 

 fall of a stone, and the revolution of the planetary globes, continued 

 shrouded in impenetrable obscurity. And is it improbable that 

 many more such discoveries may remain to be made ? and that many 

 more principles will for ever remain beyond the reach of disco- 

 very ? Does it not approach to presumption to suppose that we 

 have entered into the adytum of nature, the very holy of holies, if 

 I may so speak, of the great temple of the world ? 



** Tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri ?'*+ 



Such is but too frequently the disadvantage attendant upon scien- 

 tific research ; it leads us to forget our profound ignorance : and in 

 our eagerness to possess ourselves of the secrets of the Almighty, we 

 may sometimes expose ourselves to the rebuke which he gave to his 



• Isaiah, xL, 22. t ^neid, 1, 136. 



