14 



of the light which emanates from a candle, is identical 

 with that which reaches us by reflection from the satel- 

 lites of Jupiter, or with that which beams upon us from 

 stars which are immeasurably distant, surely cannot fail 

 to experience an impression more imposing and more 

 worthy of the majesty of creation, than those who are 

 unaccustomed to investigate the great mutual relations of 

 phenomena. Is it not evident that the natural, the legiti- 

 mate tendencies of such studies, are to enlarge our sym- 

 pathies, exalt our conceptions, elevate the soul, and enno- 

 ble our enjoyment ; by enabling us to attain a vivid appre- 

 ciation of that endless unity and conn action which binds 

 all nature in one eternal chain of causation ? And must 

 not the imaginative faculties flourish and fructify under 

 such vivifying influences ? How immeasurably have the 

 bounds of space and time been enlarged since the elder 

 Herschel " broke through the enclosures of heaven,'"^ 

 and, like another Columbus, penetrated into an unknown 

 ocean, from which he beheld coasts and groups of islands, 

 whose position and outlines must be determined by future 

 ages ! Every one is familiar with the feeling of sublimity 

 which takes possession of the imagination, when we con- 

 template the boundlessness of the ocean ; but how vastly 

 mcyre boundless, fathomless and sublime, is that universal 

 ethereal ocean which modern science has revealed to us, 

 whose waves are the bearers of messages from world to 

 world, and from system to system ! How illimitable is the 

 empire of universal attraction, as manifested to us in the 

 motions of double stars ! The true student of Nature, 

 whose imagination is stored with such ideas, must be car- 



**'Coelorum perrupit claustra," is the elegant inecription on Sir Wm. Her- 

 fichel's monument at Upton. 



