54 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



singular method of struggling against famine is 

 maintained to the last moment ; for at the end of a 

 few days there frequently remained nothing more of 

 the animal than a little spherical ball, crowned with 

 tentacles. The Synapta had by degrees cut away 

 the whole of its body in order to keep life in its 

 head. 



In one of his inspired songs the prophet exclaims, 

 " The heavens declare thy glory, O Jehovah ! " and 

 assuredly there is no one who has not at times felt 

 his heart lifted above earthly things, when on a fine 

 summer's night he has watched the stars, as they 

 stood forth like so many diamonds upon the deep 

 azure of the celestial vault, shedding upon us from 

 afar their scintillating light. There is no one, 

 probably, who at the rising of the sun has not felt 

 something of the same emotion which the Philoso- 

 pher of Ferney experienced, when on the first 

 occasion of his witnessing this splendid spectacle, he 

 knelt in adoration before the majesty of the Creator, 

 exclaiming : " Mon Dieu ! vous etes grand ! qui 

 pourrait ne pas croire en vous." Yet we find that 

 the contemplation of celestial phenomena is capable 

 of associating sceptical ideas with the most exalted 

 sentiments of admiration. The immutable move- 

 ments of the stars seem at every turn to give 

 evidence of the control of fatality, and hence has 

 arisen that belief in astrology which has prevailed 

 so universally amongst enlightened nations. The 

 discoveries of modern science, by destroying what- 

 ever was superstitious in these applications of astro- 

 nomy, have perhaps rather tended to confirm this 



