‘ 4 
4 
At 
by 
= 2 
4 3 
“4 
a 
BU: 
of the Polar Regions. 69 
sun with its planets does not always occupy the same position 
in space ; it probably moves round a fixed star situated at an 
infinitely great distance. Starting from these data, and sup- 
posing that the temperature of the different regions of space 
is not the same throughout, we should find a very simple 
explanation of the climatic aaa which have been men- 
tioned. Thus, if at the Miocene epoch the sun and its 
Cpnregti system were in a region of space hotter than that in 
which they now move, this heat must have exerted an influ- 
ence upon all parts of the terrestrial globe, but the effect must 
have been most marked in the glacial and temperate zones. 
If during this immense revolution, or solar year, hot periods 
succeed to colder ones, or vice versd, we may by analogy as- 
similate the Miocene period to its summer, the glacial period 
to its winter, and the present period to its spring. It is evi- 
dent that we must accept the idea of a course of prodigious 
length, the extent of which our minds cannot yet conceive. A 
time will no doubt come when we shall succeed in calculating 
it; and just as we now know the orbit of the earth, future 
generations may perhaps arrive at a sufficiently accurate know- 
ledge of the orbit of the sun. 
minds are confused, it is true, in presence of these spaces 
and periods which to us appear infinite; but this arises from 
the smallness of the scale according to which we measure space 
and time, as may be shown by a sumple comparison. Suppose 
the duration of the life of man to be a single day; those born 
in winter could only know by tradition that there was formerly 
a time when it was hotter, and that this time would return 
after a long series of generations. ‘The opposite would be the 
case with those born in summer. To these men of a day, a 
year would be a period of excessive length, since it would in- 
clude 365 generations. Now the actual duration of human 
life corresponds not to a day, but perhaps scarcely to a minute 
of this great solar year; what inhabitant of the earth can ever 
know its phases? If he cannot conceive them with his 
bodily eye, he may do so at least with the assistance of his 
thought, with the aid of his intellect, which enables him to 
penetrate the obscurity of the past, and to coordinate the phe- 
nomena which have been accomplished in the course of suc- 
cessive periods. The eye of his mind penetrates into the most 
distant times, as into the remotest spaces of the celestial vault. 
If the body of man is small in contrast to the immensity of 
nature, if his life is short in presence of the infinite duration 
of time, what is not the grandeur and power of his mind, 
which carries him beyond the course of ages and gives him to 
understand that in his perishable envelope is deposited the germ 
of immortality ! 
