THE INVISIBLE WORLD. 
By F. A. Poucnet, M. D., AurHor or ‘‘ THE UNIVERSE.” 
Our imagination, says Bonnet, one of the 
most zealous expounders of natural history, is 
equally confounded by what is infinitely great 
or infinitely small. 
In fact, the phenomena of creation astound 
us, whether, uplifting our look, we scrutinize 
the mechanism of the heavens, or cast our eyes 
upon the tiniest creatures of this lower realm. 
Immensity is everywhere. It stands revealed 
in the azure dome of heaven, where glows a 
perfect dust of stars, and in the living atom 
which hides from us the marvels of its organi- 
zation. 
“Whoever,” says an illustrious author, 
“‘contemplates this spectacle with the eye of 
imagination, feels the littleness of man com- 
pared to the greatness of the universe.” But 
although it is true that in presence of the im- 
mensity of space and the eternal duration of 
time a feeling of humility subjugates us; al- 
though each step that man takes in his path, 
and every wrinkle that furrows his brow, reveal 
his utter feebleness ; yet his genius, that divine 
emanation, supports him on his journey by 
showing him both his power and his lofty ori- 
gin. 
When, at the very outset of our studies, we 
cast a glance upon creation, we are astonished 
at its vastness, and we see that none of our fic- 
tions attains the sublimity of its proportions. 
For instance, the Chinese accounts of crea- 
tion represent the first organizer of chaos under 
the form of a feeble old man, enervated and 
tottering, called Pan-Kou-Ché, surrounded by 
confused masses of rock, and holding a chisel 
in one hand and a hammer in the other. He 
toils painfully at his work, and, covered with 
perspiration, carves out the crust of the globe, 
at the same time that he clears a path through 
a wilderness of rocky masses. 
One shudders at the relative feebleness’ of 
the workman to the immensity of the task. 
Well nigh lost amidst enormous masses of 
shattered stone, which surround him on every 
side and encumber the picture, he is scarcely 
seen—a real pigmy executing a herculean task. 
On the other hand, the people of the North, 
looking upon their land so often devastated by 
floods, thought that some god in his terrible 
anger had broken up the surface of it, and 
gathered the debris into heaps. To the chil- 
dren of Scandinavia this diety was not a palsied 
and infirm old man ; they required a divinity 
endowed with their own savage energy. In 
their eyes it was the god of tempests ; the re- 
doubtable and gigantic Thor, who, armed with 
a blacksmith’s hammer, and suspended over 
the abyss, with mighty blows broke up the 
crust of the earth, and fashioned the rocks and 
mountains with splinters. Here wesee already 
an advance upon the feeble old Pan-Kou-Ché ; 
manly vigor is substituted for the impotence of 
old age. It is a reminiscence of the ancient 
epic poesy. Thor shows like a revolted giant, 
raging and shattering everything that falls 
within his reach. 
But to us, accustomed to bow before an all- 
powertul Creator, such images appear very 
puerile. Instead of these old men and giants 
laboriously occupied in hammering out the 
globe, we only trace everywhere the invisible 
hand of God. In one place, with a delicacy 
which passes all conception, it animates the 
insect with the breath of life; in another, ex- 
panding itself to vast dimensions, it reins the 
worlds scattered through space, convulses or 
annihilates them. It is at such times that, in 
the midst of its throes, our globe cleaves its 
mountains and opens up its abysses ; and upon 
each of its gigantic ruins, as upon each grain 
of sand, the philosopher finds written a grand 
page of natural theology. 
In fact, every crumbling peak displays to our 
view the remains of generations buried by the 
revolutions of the globe. Their numbers, their 
size, their unknown forms astonish us ; but we 
cannot doubt, for these inanimate remains, of 
which the earth has faithfully kept the impress, 
are so many medallions struck by the Creator 
and spared by the hand of time, to reveal tous 
the world’s eventful history. 
If we review the living forces of our planet, 
we soon perceive that their power is boundless. 
When they are unleashed within its bowels, 
the whole face of the earth is shaken. At one 
time they raise up the Alps and Himalayas, 
their summits towering into the region of the 
clouds. At another, almost cleaving the globe 
