GREAT SOLAR ECLIPSES. 15 



eclipse excited great attention, and led scientific as 

 well as unlearned men to contemplate with admiration 

 the perfection and regularity of the movements of the 

 celestial bodies. ' All the accounts respecting this 

 eclipse,' says Signer Piola, ; contain reflections on the 

 perfection of that great machine of the universe, whose 

 movements are so regular that the astronomer is 

 enabled, long beforehand, to predict their effects with 

 unfailing precision; and from contemplating the 

 machine, it was natural to ascend to the Supreme 

 Apfirlcer. While this idea swells in the mind there is 

 another which at the same time shrinks into insigni- 

 ficance that suggested by contemplating the position 

 of man in the midst of creation. The magnificence of 

 the scale upon which the phenomena of the eclipse, 

 whether atmospheric or celestial, took place, was 

 patent to every spectator. The extensive coloration 

 of an unusual hue that was visible ; the rapid changes 

 which occurred ; above all, the obscurity which settled 

 over nature like the funereal pall thrown over a 

 dead body, and whose subsequent withdrawal in an 

 instant operated like a resurrection ; all this produced 

 on the mind a mixture of profound and indefinable 

 impressions which it will be pleasing to hold long in 

 remembrance.' 



And in conclusion I would remark how unworthy 

 of the philosopher and student of nature is that spirit 

 which leads men to look with less admiration on 

 natural phenomena that have received their interpreta- 

 tion from the labours of scientific men. No mystery 



