Polytechnic Association. 887 



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creating -worlds, which he throws off to the right or the left, giving 



them an impetus which, for some unknown reason, is to last forever, 



and to be their guide through illimitable space. 



They thus, in fact, malign the Deity, by likening him to man, and 

 • to His own created things. They forget that right and left are only 

 relative terms to a stationary being of limited power and presence, 

 and that neither height or depth has any existence in the infinity of 

 space. But the question comes back again, how else can they account 

 for the vast movements of the earth and the planets, which we know 

 exist and see daily performed. 



The way is then open for imagination to conceive a method by 

 which these movements can be accounted for, but it must be a method 

 consistent with the natural forces known to exist, consistent with the 

 known movements of the heavenly bodies, and contradictory of no 

 known truth whatever. 



Imagination is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, power of the 

 mind which God has given us ; we identify it with thought, but it is 

 superior to thought, and always leads it ; it is creative as well as sug- 

 gestive in its power ; it presents to us the images of things as perfect 

 as the realities, and no matter from w r hat distance they may come, 

 her flight to bring them is instantaneous as the lightning. Although 

 wayward at times, she is always the willing handmaid of reason, and 

 under that guidance imagination is always the pathway to discovery. 

 "We must invoke her help, then, in our present dilemma, and go wan- 

 dering for a while in the realms of space, w T ith reason and imagination 

 alone for companionship. 



I think I can best lead your minds along with me in this wander- 

 ing by relating a story of fact. I was sitting on the piazza ou the 

 west side of my country house, to witness the splendors of a summer 

 sunset. The air was cool and refreshing, and I sat till twilight had 

 deepened into night, when imagination assumed the reins of thought, 

 and all that here follows is of her suggestion : 



" What mean these glittering worlds in view, that downward slope 

 their west'ring wheels 2" They are all apparently moving. By what 

 means, for what purpose and to what end ? But astronomers say it 

 is we that move, not they, and astronomers must be right, else how 

 could such journeys be accomplished ? But there is no appearance of 

 our moving ; the air is still around us ; it is even moving gently in 

 the same direction with us. If we were in such rapid motion as is 

 supposed, the air would rush by us in the opposite direction with a 

 force that would annihilate us. The atmosphere must, then, move 



