Wess.—On Astronomy and Celestial Physics. liii 
found to be nebulous, the nebulosity being most condensed near it. If, as 
Mr. Le Sueur conjectured, this star had consumed the nebulous matter which 
formerly surrounded it, it would appear to have found a fresh envelope. 
Mankind for ages believed that the celestial orbs ruled the destinies of 
men in some occult but very direct manner. Science is gradually restoring to 
us some phases of this faith. The influence which the physical circumstances 
that surround him have upon the character and actions of the individual 
man, has been made clear by the comparison and classification of innumerable 
observations. The statistics of human life, of human action, and human 
manners, have been brought into conjunction with those of the physical con- 
ditions to which our race is subjected, and wonderful and most convincing 
coincidences have been revealed; and at the same time we have been 
learning how intimate is the tie which binds together all things that exist in 
the universe. It is no new thing to acknowledge the rule which the sun has 
over the physical conditions which prevail upon our planet; but it is only of 
late years that we have been taught to appreciate at their full intent the 
influences which are brought to bear upon the sun from without—influences 
which dictate the character of his dealings with the subordinate members of 
this system, of which he is the ruling centre. The time has gone by when the 
sun was accepted as a self-sufficient source of light, and heat, and power. 
Trreverent investigators inquire into his pedigree, speculate upon the sources 
of his annual income of force, calculate the probable length of his present 
existence, and dogmatize on the nature of the “future state” that is provided 
for him. We have long since satisfied ourselves that there is no certainty 
about the sun; we suspect him of being influenced by the fair face of any 
planet that happens to be in aphelion, accuse him of consuming comets behind 
the scenes, and of devouring myriads of asteroids to keep himself and his 
subject planets warm. And so we have come to recognize the fact that, as the 
moral condition of a nation depends upon its harvests, so do these harvests 
depend upon the physical condition of the sun’s surface, whilst this, in its 
turn, depends upon other things of which we have as yet but little knowledge, 
but of which we know enough to certify us that they again are not indepen- 
dent phenomena, but are moulded and made what we find them by the flux 
and reflux of cosmical forces whose origin is far beyond our ken, and of whose 
mode of action we have but a faint glimmer of knowledge. 
Such reflections as these are inevitably excited in the minds of those who 
address themselves to the study of the current labours and speculations of 
their fellow men in the departments of science with which we are occupied to- 
night. The past winter in the Northern Hemisphere, as with ourselves, was 
remarkable for the occasional intensity of its cold, and general severity of its 
weather. In November and December the cold was very severe, then 
