THE PLEASURES OF SCIENCE 



and systems, or their destruction, in the abyss of 

 sidereal space. To immeasurable time is added im- 

 measurable space. Cosmic collisions and revolu- 

 tions make terrestrial upheavals and displacements 

 like happenings in your back yard. It is not every 

 night that one's mind opens to take in the stupen- 

 dous spectacle of the starry sky. When in some 

 felicitous moment it does so, one can but exclaim. 

 Think of living in a world where any hour of the 

 night the curtain may be lifted upon such a scene 

 as that ! — the Infinite baring its bosom to us, the 

 Eternal looking directly into our eyes! And how 

 much of this emotion, which at times overwhelms 

 us, we owe directly to science! Our untutored minds 

 are comparatively blind to such a spectacle. Science 

 has given us a new vision. The book of celestial 

 revelation has really been opened to us. What a 

 world of new knowledge has the spectroscope 

 opened to us ! That all this heavenly host is in swift 

 motion, going no one knows whither, suns and 

 systems careering through space like clouds across 

 the sky, and yet, to human eyes, during the historic 

 period appearing like fixed points in the celestial 

 vault — how wonderful is that ! 



To descend from astronomy to physics seems like 

 a great come-down, but it is only stooping from the 

 grandeur of orbs to the marvels of atoms, from the 

 infinitely great to the infinitely little, from seeing the 

 cosmic laws operating in the exterior universe above, 



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