80 COSMOS 



lion to its form, temperature, and magnetic tension, anJ to 

 consoler the fullness of organic life unfolding itse'if upon iti 

 <uri;u.e beneath the vivifying influence of light. In this man- 

 rer a picture of the world may, with a few strokes, be mad 

 * - include the realms of infinity no less than the minute mi- 

 ci ^scopic animal and vegetable organisms which exist in stand- 

 ing waters and on the weather-beaten surface of our rocks. 

 All that can be perceived by the senses, and all that has been 

 accumulated up to the present day by an attentive and vari- 

 ously directed study of nature, constitute the materials from 

 which this representation is to be drawn, whose character is 

 an evidence of its fidelity and truth. But the descriptive pic- 

 ture of nature which we purpose drawing must not enter too 

 fully into detail, since a minute enumeration of all vital forms, 

 natural objects, and processes is not requisite to the complete- 

 ness of the undertaking. The delineator of nature must re- 

 sist the tendency toward endless division, in order to avoid 

 the dangers presented by the very abundance of our empirical 

 knowledge. A considerable portion of the qualitative proper- 

 ties of matter or, to speak more in accordance with the lan- 

 guage of natural philosophy, of the qualitative expression of 

 forces is doubtlessly still unknown to us, and the attempt 

 perfectly to represent unity in diversity must therefore neces- 

 sarily prove unsuccessful. Thus, besides the pleasure derived 

 from acquired knowledge, there lurks in the mind of man, 

 and tinged with a shade of sadness, an unsatisfied longing for 

 something beyond the present a striving toward regions yet 

 unknown and unopened. Such a sense of longing binds still 

 faster the links which, in accordance with the supreme laws 

 of our being, connect the material with the ideal world, and 

 animates the mys f erious relation existing between that which 

 the mind receive* from without, and that which it reflects 

 from its own dej ihs to the external world. If, then, nature 

 (understanding by the term all natural objects and phenomena) 

 be illimitable in extent and contents, it likewise presents it- 

 self to the human intellect as a problem which can not be 

 grasped, and whose solution is impossible, since it requires a 

 knowledge of che combined action of all natural forces. Such 

 an acknowledgment is due where the actual state and pro- 

 spective development of phenomena constitute the sole objects 

 of direct investigation, which does not venture to depart from 

 the strict rules of induction. But, although the incessant ef- 

 fort to embrace nature in its universality may remain unsatis- 

 lied, the history of the contemplation of the universe (which 



