20 ERRORS ARISING FROM 



armed with powerful telescopes, penetrates space, and con- 

 templates the satellites of Uranus at the extreme confines 

 of our solar system *, or (like Herschel, South, and Struve) 

 decomposes faintly sparkling points into double stars, differ- 

 ing in colour and revolving round a common centre of 

 gravity ; the botanist discovers the constancy of the gyratory 

 motion of the chara in the greater number of vegetable cells, 

 and recognises the intimate relations of organic forms in 

 genera, and in natural families. Surely the vault of heaven 

 studded with stars and nebulae, and the rich vegetable 

 covering which mantles the earth in the climate of palms, 

 can scarcely fail to produce on these laborious observers im- 

 pressions more imposing, and more worthy of the majesty 

 of creation, than on minds unaccustomed to lay hold of the 

 great mutual relations of phsenomena. I cannot therefore 

 agree with Burke when he says, that our ignorance of natural 

 things is the principal source of our admiration, and of the 

 feeling of the sublime. The illusion of the senses, for exam- 

 ple, would have nailed the stars to the crystalline dome of 

 the sky ; but astronomy has assigned to space an indefinite 

 extent ; and if she has set limits to the great nebula to which 

 our solar system belongs, it has been to shew us further and 

 further beyond its bounds, (as our optic powers are in- 

 creased,) island after island of scattered nebulae. The feel- 

 ing of the sublime, so far as it arises from the contemplation 

 of physical extent, reflects itself in the feeling of the infinite 

 which belongs to another sphere of ideas. That which it 

 offers of solemn and imposing it owes to the connexion just 

 indicated ; and hence the analogy of the emotions and of 

 the pleasure excited in us in the midst of the wide sea ; 



[* Written, the reader will remember, before the discovery of the planet 

 Le Verrier. ED.] 



