124 ASTRONOMY AS A SCIENCE. THE SUN. 



the human race on earth) seems the sole means of 

 solving that higher question, as to the proper motion of 

 the sun itself, together with its planets, in the universe 

 of space ? Whether what the short life of our astro- 

 nomy here shows but as a rectilinear motion in a given 

 direction through this vast void be not really the seg- 

 ment of an orbit round some centre of gravity yet 

 unknown? All analogy points to this conclusion, but 

 of more direct evidence there is none. 



Holding in view these various discoveries and the 

 speculations to which they legitimately lead, no one 

 having intellectual sensibility (a phrase I willingly 

 adopt) can regard without some emotion this great orb 

 of the sun, rising or setting on our earthly horizon for 

 these are the times when it may best be seen or 

 wonder that there should have been races of men who 

 have viewed it as representing the Supreme Power of 

 the universe. The noble lines in which Milton addresses 

 light are a. hymn to the sun itself, as the source of that 

 wonderful element which pervades all space, minister- 

 ing to the least as well as to the greatest purposes and 

 acts of the Creative Power. In the foregoing paper I 

 have taken the sun as representing to those who are 

 not familiar with the subject the methods and progress 

 of modern astronomy. Many other examples might 

 have been taken in illustration, but none more striking 

 than this. 



