INTRODUCTION. 19 



notary bodies, who measures patiently, year after year, the 

 meridian altitude and the relative distances of stars, or who 

 seeks a telescopic comet in a group of nebulae, does not feel 

 his imagination more excited and this is the very guarantee 

 of the precision of his labours than the botanist who counts 

 the divisions of the calyx, or the number of stamens in a 

 flower, or examines the connected or the separate teeth of the 

 pcristoma surrounding the capsule of a moss. Yet the multi- 

 plied angular measurements, on the one hand, and the detail 

 of organic relations on the other, alike aid in preparing the 

 way for the attainment of higher views of the laws of the 

 universe. 



We must riot f confound the disposition of mind in the 

 observer at the time he is pursuing his labours, with the ulte- 

 rior greatness of the views resulting from investigation and the 

 exercise of thought. The physical philosopher measures with 

 admirable sagacity the waves of light of unequal length 

 which by interference mutually strengthen or destroy each 

 other, even with respect to their chemical actions : the 

 astronomer, armed with powerful telescopes, penetrates the 

 regions of space, contemplates, on the extremest confines ol 

 our solar system, the satellites of Uranus, or decomposes faintly 

 sparkling points into double stars differing in colour. The 

 botanist discovers the constancy of the gyratory motion of the 

 chara in the greater number of vegetable cells, and recog- 

 nises in the genera and natural families of plants the intimate 

 relations of ^organic forms. The vault of heaven, studded 

 with nebulae and stars, and the rich vegetable mantle that 

 covers the soil in the climate of palms, cannot surely fail to 

 produce on the minds of these laborious observers of nature, 

 an impression more imposing and more worthy of the majesty 

 of creation, than on those who are unaccustomed to investi- 

 gate the great mutual relations of phenomena. I cannot, 

 therefore, agree with Burke when he says, "it is our igno- 

 rance of natural things that causes all our admiration, and 

 chiefly excites our passions.'" 



Whilst the illusion of the senses would make the stars sta- 

 tionary in the vault of heaven, astronomy by her aspiring 

 labours has assigned indefinite bounds to space ; and if she 

 have set limits to the great nebula to which our solar system 

 belongs, it has only been to show us in those remote regions 



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