160 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
suns, revolve around the centre of the universe during cycles, the 
myriads of whose enumeration outstretches calculation. But whence 
originated this mysterious agency, whence generated, what is the 
essence of the rotatory universality, may not be for human appre- 
hension. Every where its vitality is felt, is beheld ; even in our 
minutest organic functions, even amidst the decompositions of death : 
but its nature lies impervious to sense. Man can speak only of its 
mechanical processes. None can impel, none can elude, none can 
restrain it ; and every where surrounding, and actuating, and sus- 
taining, it bears the stamp of Omniscience, which shrouds creative 
might from mortal investigation. The researches of science have 
thus opened the sublimest of all subjects to human contemplation— 
namely, a series of solar systems unceasingly propelling, by the di- 
vine energy, from the original matter of physical nature. Astrono- 
mical observations will henceforward be directed, with reference to 
the laws of creation itself, towards some of the facts actually in pro- 
gressive operation, amidst the regions of nebulosity ; and the re- 
splendent beneficence of the Creator will be more and more mani- 
fested, as the universality of his operations becomes more and more 
developed. Some thousands of years hence, the expansion of science 
may hazard calculations on the consolidation of a starry stratum, on 
premises as precise as are those now employed on the growth of a 
cedar tree, both equally the workmanship and under the superin- 
tendence of the same power ; since the development of a petal or of 
a planet is alike dependent upon and demonstrative of omnipotence. 
We have here approached boundaries impervious to the ignorance of 
former ages, and at the infinity of whose remoteness from our solar 
system man’s faculties stand appalled ; yet so far from being those 
of limitation, demonstrated by the increasing excellence of magnifi- 
ers, as leading still onwards and onwards, amidst fresh regions of 
infinitude, and fresh displays of creative vitality. Displays, not 
merely of sun upon sun, in stupendous rivalry, but embracing re- 
gions the smallest conception of whose immensity demands the en- 
tire abstraction of human intellect. Regions wherein the immuta- 
bility of God reveals itself in an eternity of ‘primordial diffusion ; 
wherein the faintest object. discernible by man comprises strata of 
suns, and the minutest operation the formation of worlds !” 
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