MAGNITUDE AND MINUTENESS. 



order of magnitude. Astronomers have shown that that great 

 central mass has a bulk which is nearly 1,400000 times greater 

 than that of the earth,* or, in other words, that enormous as the 

 globe of the earth is, compared with any standard of magnitude 

 which falls under the immediate observation of the senses, it would 

 be necessary to roll 1,400000 such globes into one to make a globe 

 equal to the sun. 



6. Nor do we stop even here. Suns occupying positions in the 

 universe so distant, that to our vision, even when aided by the 

 most powerful telescopes, they appear only as luminous points, 

 have been shown to be many times larger than ours. Comets 

 have been observed and measured, the tails of which have a bulk 

 hundreds of times greater than that of the sun. Clusters con- 

 sisting of countless thousands of suns are brought by the telescope 

 within our observation which exceed the magnitude, not of the 

 sun only, but of a sun which would fill the entire solar system in 

 a proportion to which it is impossible even to approximate. 



Two of these clusters of suns which are reduced by distance to 

 nebulous spots are shown in figs. 1 and 2, page 193. 



Thus as astronomy has advanced, it has enabled us to ascend in 

 the scale of the sublime from magnitude to magnitude, each suc- 

 cessive discovery reducing all former standards to comparative 

 minuteness, until the understanding and the imagination are con- 

 founded by the stupendous spectacle which the material world 

 presents, and lost in that immensity which is the theatre of the 

 creative and beneficent power of the Most High. 



7. If our astonishment and admiration are excited by the vast 

 scale of the stellar universe, they are not less awakened by the 

 wonders disclosed when a minute analysis of bodies brings under 

 our view the wonderful structure of their component parts, and the 

 extraordinary manifestation of power and purpose in the organ- 

 isation of things which would elude the senses unaided by the 

 microscope. 



The materials of bodies, even the most massive and ponderous, 

 are infinitely minute, but, minute as they are, their particles or 

 molecules are often formed with the most delicately exact 

 geometrical precision. The separation of these particles, and the 

 discovery of their forms and properties, are among the most 

 marvellous results of scientific research. 



8. Material substances are always found in one or other of three 

 states, the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous or vaporous. 



Stones, woods, and metals are obvious examples of the solid 

 state, water of the liquid, and air and steam of the gaseous or 

 vaporous state. 



* See our Tract on "The Sun." 

 196 



