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EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE 

 UNIVERSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 



TIL 



Great Discoveries in Space by the application of the Telescope. 

 The great Epoch of Astronomy and Mathematics from Galileo 

 and Kepler to Newton and Leibnitz. Laws of the Planetary 

 Motions, and general Theory of Gravitation. 



IN attempting to recount the most distinctly marked pe- 

 riods and gradations of the development of cosmical con- 

 templation, we have in the last section endeavoured to 

 depict the epoch, in which one hemisphere of the globe first 

 became known to the cultivated nations inhabiting the 

 other. The epoch of the most extensive discoveries upon 

 the surface of our planet was immediately succeeded by 

 man's first taking possession of a considerable part of the 

 celestial spaces by the telescope. The application of a 

 newly formed organ, of an instrument of space-penetrating 

 power, called forth a new world of ideas. Now began a 

 brilliant age of astronomy and mathematics; and in the 

 latter the long series of profound investigators, leading to 

 the " all-transforming" Leonard Euler, the year of whose 

 birth (1707) is so near the year of Jacob Bernoulli's death. 

 A few names may suffice to recal the giant strides with 

 which the human mind advanced in the 17th century, less 

 from any outward incitements than from its own indepen- 

 dent energies, and especially in the development of mathe- 



