AND THEORY OF THE HEAVENS. 65 



the grandeur of a planetary world in which the earth, 

 as a grain of sand, is scarcely perceived, fills the 

 understanding with wonder; with what astonishment are 

 we transported when we behold the infinite multitude of 

 worlds and systems which fill the extension of the Milky 

 Way ! But how is this astonishment increased, when we 

 become aware of the fact that all these immense orders 

 of star-worlds again form but one of a number whose 

 termination we do not know, and which perhaps, like 

 the former, is a system inconceivably vast and yet 

 again but one member in a new combination of numbers ! 

 We see the first members of a progressive relationship 

 of worlds and systems ; and the first part of this infinite 

 progression enables us already to recognize what must 

 be conjectured of the whole. There is here no end but 

 an abyss of a real immensity, in presence of which all 

 the capability of human conception sinks exhausted, 

 although it is supported by the aid of the science of 

 number. The Wisdom, the Goodness, the Power which 

 have been revealed is infinite ; and in the very same 

 proportion are they fruitful and active. The plan of 

 their revelation must therefore, like themselves, be infinite 

 and without bounds. 



But it is not only in the great system that important 

 discoveries are to be made which will enlarge the concep- 

 tion that may be formed of the greatness of the creation. 

 In the smaller system there is not less still undiscovered ; 

 and even in our Solar world we see the members of a 

 system enormously distant from each other, and between 

 which the intervening parts have not yet been discovered. 

 Between Saturn, the outermost of the planets which we 



know, and the least eccentric comet which comes to us 



E 



