pupa,* and imago. They typified, therefore, among the Greeks," Non omnis moriar," answering to the motto of "Resurgam" on modern escutcheons. All the sciences illustrate each other; and though the analogy may not be apparent to an untutored eye, there is, beyond all reasonable doubt, a relation, not only between a grain of sand and the most distant planet of the universe, but between the highest intellectual being and the smallest infusoria in what may be figuratively styled the infinite little. The telescope has one great superiority over the microscope. The latter chains us, as it were, to the earth, while the former carries us far beyond. The microscope, however, exhibits almost as wonderful phenomena in a drop of water as the telescope does in all the heavens. The telescope displays myriads of suns, but no visible living matter; whereas the microscope unfolds myriads of animated beings in a globule, endowed with parts and organs as curious as those of an eagle, an elephant, or a man. "Each secret spring, each organ let us trace: Exquisitely minute as some animalcules are, they have numerous stomachs, distinct vision, and acute taste; and so wonderfully formed are they, that 80,000 extremities have been counted in a peculiar species of sea-star; 27,000 lenses have been counted in the eye of a dragon-fly; and 500,000 infusories have been counted (by means of a micrometer) in a globule of water; and so universal are they, that there is not a spray of the sea, a drop of rain, of vegetable or even of animal fluid, that is not crowded with them. Magnitudes are all relative. Who does not feel the size of the earth on which we tread? And yet so small is it in the general scale of the universe— an area * Chrysalis, aurelia, nymph. + Perfect animals, "Without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height that by no instrument yet invented has man been able to detect that one point of the earth is nearer or more distant from what are called the fixed stars than another! We, in fact, occupy a speck in the universe not larger, comparatively, than a grain of sand: whence, "Sinking to earthly from ethereal things," we must often be brought to admit that the infinitely little can no more be conceived than the infinitely great. The largest body yet contemplated by man is a star, supposed to occupy a place larger than that embraced in the entire solar system! The smallest animal is even of less dimensions than those presented by infusoria: one species of which (monas termo) has a body, the diameter of which is only of a line; and the thickness of the skin of its stomach is calculated to be at from only 1800000 to 4000 of a line!* Whether matter can be infinitely divided has been in all ages a subject of discussion. I am inclined to suppose it can be; for as every substance has necessarily an upper side, it must, by the same necessity, have an under one. Having two sides, the one can, of course, be divided from the other. The larger the system, the more wonderful is the appearance of power in the architect; the finer and more minute, the more delicate and more exquisite the skill of the designer. Everything, in fact, proves * Their powers of reproduction, also, are so great, that from one individual 1,000,000 were produced in ten days; on the eleventh day, 4,000,000; and on the twelfth, 16,000,000.-Vid. BUCKLAND: Bridgewater Treatise, i., 446. In regard to the num. ber of animals in a given space, it has been calculated that in a space of sea, in the arctic regions, of only two miles square and 250 fathoms deep, there are marine animals amounting to 23,888,000,000,000! an Intelligence capable of adapting means to ends; and equally astonishing with the objects beheld are the life and thought by which they are perceived. PLANETS IN A PROGRESSIVE STATE. I GAZED for a long time, the other night, upon SIRIUS, the brightest of all the stars; once counted among the red stars, now among the white; of a size 324 times that of a star of the sixth magnitude, and supposed by Wollaston to throw out a light more than equal to fourteen suns: doubtless, too, accompanied by a community of satellites. If we read Plutarch's Essay on Isis and Osiris, we shall discover that some of the ancients believed that spirits fell by degrees, not, as Vulcan did, from heaven "From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve❞— but from the fixed stars to the region of the planets; from the sphere of the planets to that of the earth; and thence to the regions of Proserpine and Pluto. Some even believed that all mankind came from the stars, and that each soul would return to that from which it descended. Addison makes Nature to grow old, to sink in years, and to dissolve in answer to which, let me refer you to Milton's poem, " Naturam non pati senium. Geology teaches that, in the history of our planet, many changes have taken place; and it is reasonable to suppose that all those changes were improvements, and for the better. The Greeks and all the Eastern poets animated every department of Nature, and the stars were, in consequence, far from being neglected.* Virgil * The myriads of petrified remains disclosed by the research goes even so far as to hint that, as bees and other animals came from them, each animal after death would return to its own peculiar star. ed. Anaxagoras also believed the stars to be inhabit "Have you no concern for your country?" inquired a citizen of Athens. "Oh yes!" answered the philosopher, stretching his hands towards the heavens, "I have a very great concern for my country." Origen entertained the same belief. The Spirit of God, in fact, moves on the face and throughout the depths of the universe, and leaves no part of creation destitute of life. Conjectures relative to the size, nature, qualities, and capacities of the stellar inhabitants are idle to the last degree. We know nothing in regard to them. Whether larger or smaller; possessing fewer or more senses; with less or more extended endowments, where is the use of indulging even the shadow of a supposition? Their senses may be different; their whole natures, in fact, may be so different as not to present the slightest analogy to anything we ever heard of, saw, dreamed of, imagined, or have the power to imagine; for the skies "Inform us of superiors numberless, As much in excellence above mankind, As above earth in magnitude the spheres." The day is the period of action, night the season of meditation. Though we may acquire greater knowledge of man during the day, we acquire a wider knowledge of Nature during the night. Scenes by day rivet us, scenes by night clothe us with wings. The pall, the coffin, and the spade tell us we es of geology all tend to prove that our planet has been occupied, in times preceding the creation of the human race, by extinct species of animals and vegetables, made up, like living organic bodies, of "clusters of contrivances," which demonstrate the exercise of stupendous intelligence and power.-BUCKLAND: Bridgewater Treatise, pref., p. viii. shall perish; the planet, the satellite, the comet, and the star whisper to our imagination-There is room for myriads of myriads of myriads! As the state of man, there can be no doubt, is progressive, that of planets and suns we may suppose progressive also. They may not (any of them) have come to their full maturity of excellence. Nature may not have yet put her finishing hand to any one of them. Thus also with our earth: common experience teaches us that it is improving every day. Savage animals are decreasing; fens are drained; forests no longer cover one third of the globe; rivers are kept better in their channels; and the climates of almost all regions appear, in consequence, in a state of progression. The stars, no doubt, are peopled with beings in harmony with their place of abode, and of which we have no more conception than an insect in the lowest depths of the ocean has of lions and eagles, apes, monkeys, or men. SPACE-MOTION. ALL the globes that the utmost power of the telescope can display are but as globules of mist in the range of the universe. Space, being unlimited, can have no centre; but where bodies exist and are limited in number, there may be a centre; yet even then, unless there be a true circumference, there can be no absolute centre, since true centres can only exist where outlines are equal in all their parts. Space being unlimited, a gravitating power in search of a centre might pierce the recesses of the universe fifty millions of years (and with the rapidi |