THEORY AND HISTORY OF THE SUN. 165 



Durham to determine what is the nature of this founda- 

 tion stone of the whole creation, and what is to be found 

 upon it. With a fanatical enthusiasm he finds there a 

 powerful Being of a divine nature possessed of spiritual 

 powers of attraction and repulsion which, acting in an 

 infinite sphere around itself, draws to it all virtue, but 

 repels the vices; and in this happy place it is exalted, 

 as it were, to the throne of all nature. We shall, how- 

 ever, not throw the reins of imagination over to the 

 boldness of conjecture to which we have perhaps only 

 allowed too much already lest we be carried away by 

 arbitrary fancies. 



The Deity is equally present everywhere in the infinitude 

 of the whole of space; He is found equally near wher- 

 ever there are natures that are capable of soaring above 

 the dependence of the creatures to communion with Him 

 as the supreme Being. The whole creation is penetrated 

 by His energy; but only he who is able to liberate 

 himself from the creature, and who is noble enough to 

 see that the highest reach of happiness can alone be 

 sought in the enjoyment of this primary source of per- 

 fection, he alone is able to find himself nearer to this 

 true attracting-point of all excellence than anything else 

 in the whole of nature. Yet without sharing in the en- 

 opposite point, this line must pass through the centre of the system. 

 And, in fact, it comes very exactly to Sirius, the brightest star in 

 the whole sky, which, on account of this happy concurrence har- 

 monizing so well with its preponderating form, seems to deserve its 

 being held to be the central body. According to this idea, it should 

 also be seen just in the zone of the Milky Way, if the position of 

 our sun, which diverges somewhat from the plane at the tail of the 

 Eagle, did not cause the optical distance of the centre to be displaced 

 towards the other side of the zone. 



