1867.] Vastness of Creation. 11 



the great refractors at Pulkava aud Cambridge, the most irresolvable 

 of these nebulas have given way ; and the better opinion now is, that 

 every one of them is a galaxy, like our own Milky Way, composed 

 of millions of suns. In other words, we are brought to the bewil- 

 dering conclusion, that thousands of these misty specks, the greater 

 part of them too faint to be seen by the naked eye, are, not a uni- 

 Terse like our solar system, but each a ' swarm ' of universes of un- 

 appreciable magnitude. (Humboldt, Cosmus, iii., 44.) The mind 

 sinks overpowered by the contemplation. We repeat the words, but 

 they no longer convey distinct ideas to the understanding. 



But these conclusions, however vast their comprehension, carry 

 us another step forward in the realms of sidereal astronomy. A 

 proper motion in space of our sun and the fixed stars, as we call 

 them, has long been believed to exist. Their vast distances only 

 prevent its being more apparent. The great improvement in instru- 

 ments of measurement within the last generation, has not only es- 

 tablished the existence of this motion, but has pointed to regions in 

 the starry vault, around which the whole solar and stellar system, 

 with its myriad attendant planetary worlds, appears to be performing 

 a mighty revolution. If, then, we assume that, outside of the sys- 

 tem to which we belong, and in which our sun is but a star like 

 Aldebaran or Sirius, the diiferent nebulae of which we have spoken, 

 thousands of which spot the heavens, constitute each a distinct fam- 

 ily of universes, we must, following the guide of analogy, attribute 

 to each of them also, beyond all the revolutions of their individual 

 attendant planetary systems, a great revolution, comprehending the 

 whole ; while the same course of analogical reasoning would lead us 

 still further onward, and in the last analysis require us to assume a 

 transcendental connection between all these mighty systems; a uni- 

 verse of universes, circling round in the infinity of space, and pre- 

 serving its equilibrium by the same laws of mutual attraction which 

 bind the lower worlds together. 



It may be thought that conceptions like these, are calculated rather 

 to depress than to elevate us in the scale of being; that banished as 

 he is by these contemplations to a corner of creation, and there re- 

 duced to an atom, man sinks to nothingness in this infinity of worlds. 

 But a second thought corrects this impression. These vast contem- 

 plations, are well calculated to inspire awe but not abasement. Mind 

 and matter are incommensurable. An immortal soiil, even while 

 clothed in 'this muddy vesture of decay,' is in the eye of God and 



