SPECIAL RESULTS OF OBSERVATION 



IN THE 



DOMAIN OF COSMICAL PHE^OMEKl 



INTRODUCTION. 



Ix accordance with the object I have proposed to myself, 

 and which, as far as my own powers and the present state 

 of science permit, I have regarded as not unattainable, I 

 have, in the preceding volumes of Cosmos, considered Nature 

 in a twofold point of view. In the first place, I have 

 endeavoured to present her in the pure objectiveness of 

 external phenomena; and, secondly, as the reflection of 

 the image impressed by the senses upon the innef~man, that 

 is, upon his ideas and feelings. 



The external world of phenomena has been delineated under 

 the scientific form of a general picture of nature in her two 

 great spheres, the uranological and the telluric or terrestrial. 

 This delineation begins with the stars, which glimmer amidst 

 nebulae in the remotest realms of space, and passing from our 

 planetary system to the vegetable covering of the earth, 

 descends to the minutest organisms which float in the atmo- 

 sphere, and are invisible to the naked eye. In order to give due 

 prominence t the considerate n of the existence of one 

 common bond encircling the whole organic world, of the control 

 of eternal laws, and of the causal connexion, as far as yet 

 known to us, of whole groups of phenomena, it was necessary 

 to avoid the accumulation of isolated facts. This precaution 



VOL. III. B 



