150 LIFE IN NATUEE. 



magnitude." I am not the first to use the term. 

 The "organization" of the heavens of our own 

 solar system, and of the various galaxies of stars 

 has been often spoken of. The likeness of the stellar 

 groups, and of their ordered and recurrent move- 

 ments, to the forms and processes of the organic 

 world, has found for itself a voice, at least in meta- 

 phor. There is a striking passage in the first volume 

 of Cosmos bearing so directly on this view, that 

 though it will probably have presented itself to the 

 reader's mind, he may thank me for reproducing it. 

 " If we imagine, as in a vision of fancy, the acute- 

 ness of our senses preturnaturally sharpened even to 

 the extreme limit of telescopic vision, and incidents 

 which are separated by vast intervals of time com- 

 pressed into a day or an hour, everything like rest 

 in spacial existence will forthwith disappear. We 

 shall find the innumerable host of the fixed stars 

 commoved in groups in different directions ; nebulae 

 drawing hither and thither like cosmic clouds; our 

 milky way breaking up in particular parts, and its 

 veil rent. Motion in every point of the vault of 

 heaven, as on the surface of the earth, in the germi- 



