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PICTURE OF NATURE. 



GENERAL SURVEY OP NATURAL PHENOMENA. 



When the human mind essays to dominate 

 matter — in other words, to comprehend the 

 world of physical phenomena — when we strive, 

 in thoughtful contemplation of existing things, 

 to penetrate the life of Nature in its ample ful- 

 ness, and to unveil the empire of her various 

 forces, we feel ourselves raised to an eminence, 

 whence, in the wide-spread horizon around, in- 

 dividualities present themselves gathered into 

 groups, and surrounded with a kind of vaporous 

 haze. This figurative language is used to give 

 some idea of the point of view from which we 

 shall here attempt to survey the universe, and 

 to present it for contemplation in both of its 

 spheres — the celestial and the terrestrial. The 

 boldness of such an attempt I do not conceal 

 from myself Of all the kinds of representa- 

 tion to which these pages are dedicated, that 

 of the General Picture of Nature is by far the 

 most difficult. Here we do not condescend 

 upon the minutiae of individual forms ; we only 

 pause upon the grander masses, whether in the 

 world of fact or of idea. By separation and 

 subdivision of phenomena, by a kind of forebo- 

 ding penetration of the play of obscure forces, 

 by liveliness of representation, in which the 

 impression made on the senses is reflected true 

 to nature, may we hope to grasp and to describe 

 the Infinite All {to nuv), in a way that shall be- 

 come the grand word Cosmos, in its sense of 

 Universe, Order of Creation, Beauty of Ar- 

 rangement. May the infinite diversity of ele- 

 ments that crowd into a picture of Nature so 

 vast, not disturb the harmonious impression of 

 repose and unity, which it is the last purpose 

 of every literary and artistical composition to 

 convey ! 



We begin with the depths of space, and the 

 region of the farthest nebulae; we descend, 

 step by step, through the stratum of stars to 

 which our solar system belongs, and at length 

 set foot on the air- and sea-surrounded sphe- 

 roid we inhabit, discussing its form, its tem- 

 perature, and its magnetical tension, till we 

 reach the life, that, under the stimulus of light, 

 is evolved upon its surface. A picture of the 

 universe, therefore, worked with a few grand \ 

 touches, comprehends the immeasurable depths ; 

 of space, as well as the microscopic organisms \ 

 of the vegetable and animal kingdom that live 

 in our stagnant waters, and cling to the weath- 

 erworn faces of our rocks. All that the most 

 careful study of nature, in its present direction, 

 up to the passing hour, has discovered, consti- j 

 tutes the material in harmony with which the 

 canvass is to be filled ; it includes within itself 

 the evidence of its truth and endurance. A de- 

 scriptive natural picture, however, such as we 

 would indicate it in these prolegomena, must 

 not present all the individual, all the single ; it 

 needs not, to be complete, an enumeration of j 

 all the forms of life, of every natural thing and I 



natural process. Striving against the tenden- 

 cy to endless subdivision of the Known and 

 the Collected, the thinker who orders and ar- 

 ranges must rather seek to escape the danger 

 of empirical overabundance. A considerable 

 mass of the qualitative forces of matter, or, to 

 speak in the language of the philosophers of 

 nature, of its qualitative manifestations offeree, 

 is certainly still unknown. The discovery of 

 unity in totality must, therefore, and on this 

 account, remain imperfect. Beside the joy, 

 mixed as it were with wo, which we feel in 

 knowledge possessed, there dwells in the eager 

 spirit, unsatisfied with the present, the longing 

 after yet untrodden, yet unimagined, regions 

 of knowledge. But such a longing only knits 

 more firmly the bond which, in virtue of ancient 

 laws, controlling the very core of the world of 

 thought, binds the Sentient with the Supersen- 

 tient ; it vivifies the commerce between that 

 " which the mind receives from the world with- 

 out, and that which, from its own depths, it 

 gives back." 



If nature, therefore, or the conception form- 

 ed of natural things and natural phenomena, 

 considered in its boundary and contents, be in- 

 finite, so is she also, with reference to the in- 

 tellectual powers of man, an incomprehensible, 

 and, in the general causal co-operation of her 

 forces, an unresolvable problem. Such an avow- 

 al is proper where existence and evolution (Be- 

 ing and to Be) are only subjected to immediate 

 scrutiny, in circumstances where the empirical 

 path, and the strictly inductive method, cannot 

 be quitted for a moment. But if the ceaseless 

 longing to comprehend nature in its totality re- 

 main unsatisfied, the history of human progress 

 in contemplating nature, which is reserved for 

 another section of the prolegomena, teaches 

 us, on the other hand, how, in the course of 

 centuries, mankind have gradually attained to 

 a partial insight into the relative dependence 

 of phenomena. It is my duty to pass in review 

 the contemporaneously known, according to 

 the measure and the boundaries of the present. 

 In all that is mobile, changeable in space, mean 

 numerical values are the ultimate object — they 

 are the expression, indeed, of physical laws ; 

 they show us the stable in the change and in 

 the flight of phenomena. The progress of our 

 modern measuring and weighing physics is par- 

 ticularly distinguished by the attainment and 

 correction of the mean values of certain quan- 

 tities or masses ; and here, as dwelt on by the 

 old Italic school, but in a wider sense, we find 

 those wide-spread, hieroglyphic signs, numbers, 

 coming into play as powers in Cosmos. 



The serious inquirer rejoices in the simplici- 

 ty of numerical relations, by which are indica- 

 ted the dimensions of the celestial spaces, the 

 magnitude of the bodies they enclose, and the 

 periodic perturbations which these suffer ; the 



