an interesting aspect, they are calculated to produce emotions of wonder and delight even superior to those excited by the most highly-wrought tales of fiction and romance. The following facts and considerations will perhaps tend to corroborate this position.

In the first place, the number of effects produced by a single principle in nature is calculated to excite emotions of admiration and delight. From the simple principle of gravitation, for instance, proceed all the beauties and sublimities which arise from the meandering rills, the majestic rivers, and the roaring cataracts-it causes the mountains to rest on a solid basis, and confines the ocean to its appointed channels-retains the inhabitants of the earth to its surface, and prevents them from flying off in wild confusion through the voids of space-it produces the descent of the rains and dews, and the alternate flux and reflux of the tides-regulates the various movements of all animals-forms mechanical powers-gives impulsion to numerous machines-rolls the moon round the earth, and prevents her from flying off to the distant regions of space-extends its influence from the moon to the earth, from the earth to the moon, and from the sun to the remotest planets, preserving surrounding worlds in their proper courses, and connecting the solar system with other worlds and systems in the remote spaces of the universe. When a stick of sealing wax is rubbed with a piece of flannel, it attracts feathers or small bits of paper; when a long tube of glass, or a cat's back, is rubbed in the dark, it emits flashes of fire, accompanied with a snapping noise. Now, is it not delightful to a rational mind to know, that the same principle which causes wax or amber to attract_light substances, and glass tubes or cylinders to emit sparks of fire, produces the lightnings of heaven, and all the sublime phenomena which accompany a violent thunder-storm, and, in combination with other agents, produces also the fiery meteor which sweeps through the sky with its luminous train, and the beautiful coruscations of the aurora borealis ? There are more than fifty thousand different species of plants in the vegetable kingdom, all differing from one another in their size, structure, flowers, leaves, fruits, mode of propagation, internal vessels, medicinal virtues, and the odours they exhale. Who would imagine that this immense assemblage of vegetable productions which adorns the surface of the

K

earth in every clime, with such a diversity of forms, fruits, and colours, are the result of the combination of four or five simple substances variously modified by the hand of the Creator? Yet it is an undoubted fact, ascertained from chymical analysis, that all vegetable substances, from the invisible mushroom which adheres to a spot of mouldiness, to the cedar of Lebanon and the banian-tree, which would cover with its shade an army of ten thousand men,--are solely composed of the following natural principles—caloric, light, water, air, and carbon.

Again, is it not wonderful that the invisible atmosphere should compress our bodies every moment with a weight of more than 30,000 pounds without our feeling it, and the whole earth with a weight of 12,043,468,800,000,000,000 pounds, or five thousand billions of tons; that this pressure is essentially necessary to our existence, and that a small quantity of air within us, which would not weigh above a single ounce, by its strong elastic force counteracts the effects of this tremendous pressure upon our bodies, and prevents our being crushed to pieces that the same cause prevents our habitations from falling upon us and crushing us to death, without which our glass windows would be shattered to atoms, and our most stately edifices tumbled into ruins!-that this atmosphere is at the same time performing an immense variety of operations in nature and art-insinuating itself into the pores and sap-vessels of plants and flowers-producing respiration in all living beings, and supporting all the processes of life and vegetation throughout the animal and vegetable creation-that its pressure produces the process of what is called suction and cupping causes snails and periwinkles to adhere to the rocks on which they are found-gives effect to the adhesion of bodies by means of mortar and cements-raises water in our forcing-pumps and fire-engines-supports the quicksilver in our barometers-prevents the water of our seas and rivers from boiling and evaporating into steam-and promotes the action of our steam-engines while raising water from deep pits, and while propelling vessels along seas and rivers!

In the next place, science contributes to the gratification of the human mind by enabling us to trace, in many objects and operations, surprising resemblances, where we should

beast of all have expected them. Who could, at first sight, imagine, that the process of breathing is a species of combustion, or burning-that the diamond is nothing else than carbon in a crystallized state, and differs only in a very slight degree from a piece of charcoal-that water is a compound of two invisible airs or gases, and that one of these ingredients is the principle of flame !-that the air which produces suffocation and death in coal-mines and subterraneous grottoes, is the same substance which gives briskness to ale, beer, and soda water, and the acid flavour to many mineral springs-that the air we breathe is composed of the same ingredients, and nearly in the same proportions, as nitric acid or aquafortis, which can dissolve almost all the metals, and a single draught of which would instantly destroy the human frame that the colour of white is a mixture or compound of all the other colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, and consequently, that the white light of the sun produces all that diversity of colouring which adorns the face of nature that the same principle which causes our fires to burn, forms acids, produces the rust of metals, and promotes the growth of plants by night-that plants breathe and perspire as well as animals-that carbonic acid gas, or fixed air, is the product both of vegetation, of burning, of fermentation, and of breathing-that it remains indestructible by age, and, in all its diversified combinations, still preserves its identity that the air which burns in our street-lamps and illuminates our shops and manufactories, is the same which causes a balloon to rise above the clouds, and likewise extinguishes flame when it is immersed in a body of this gas-that the leaves of vegetables which rot upon the ground, and appear to be lost for ever, are converted by the oxygen of the atmosphere into carbonic acid gas, and this very same carbon is, in process of time, absorbed by a new race of vegetables, which it clothes with a new foliage, and again renews the face of nature-and that the same principle which causes the sensation of heat is the cause of fluidity, expands bodies in every direction, enters into every operation in nature, flies from the sun at the rate of 195,000 miles in a second of time, and, by its powerful influence, prevents the whole matter of the universe from being converted into a solid mass!

What, then, can be more delightful to a being furnished

with such powers as man, than to trace the secret machinery by which the God of nature accomplishes his designs in the visible world, and displays his infinite power and intelligence to enter into the hidden springs of Nature's operations, to follow her through all her winding recesses, and to perceive from what simple principles and causes the most sublime and diversified phenomena are produced! It is with this view that the Almighty hath set before us his wondrous works, not to be overlooked, or beheld with a "brute unconscious gaze," but to be investigated, in order that they may be admired, and that in such investigations we may enjoy a sacred pleasure in contemplating the results of his wisdom and intelligence.

In the third place, science contributes to our enjoyment by the grand and sublime objects she presents before us. In consequence of the investigations which have been made to determine the distances and magnitudes of the heavenly bodies, objects of magnificence and grandeur are now presented to the view of the enlightened mind of which former ages could form no conception. These objects are magnificent in respect of magnitude, of motion, of the vast spaces which intervene between them, and of the noble purposes for which they are destined.

What a sublime idea, for example, is presented to the view by such an object as the planet Jupiter,-a globe fourteen hundred times larger than the world in which we dwell, and whose surface would contain a population a hundred times more numerous than all the inhabitants that have existed on our globe since the creation! And how is the sublimity of such an idea augmented when we consider, that this immense body is revolving round its axis at the rate of twenty-eight thousand miles in an hour, and is flying, at the same time, through the regions of space, twenty-nine thousand miles every hour, carrying along with it four moons, each of them larger than the earth, during its whole course round the centre of its motion! And if this planet, which appears only like a luminous speck on the nocturnal sky, presents such an august idea, when its magnitude and motions are investigated, what an astonishing idea is presented to the mind when it contemplates the size and splendour of the sun,-a body which would contain within its bowels nine hundred globes larger than Jupiter, and thirteen

hundred thousand globes of the bulk of the earth,-which darts its rays in a few moments to the remotest bounds of the planetary system, producing light and colour, and life and vegetation throughout surrounding worlds! And how must our astonishment be still increased, when we consider the number of such globes which exist throughout the universe; that within the range of our telescopes more than eighty millions of globes, similar to the sun in size and in splendour, are arranged at immeasurable distances from each other, diffusing their radiance through the immensity of space, and enlivening surrounding worlds with their benign influence, besides the innumerable multitudes which, our reason tells us, must exist beyond all that is visible to the eyes of mortals!

But the motions, no less than the magnitudes, of such bodies present ideas of sublimity. That a globe as large as the earth should fly through the celestial regions with a velocity of seventy-six thousand miles an hour,-that another globet should move at the rate of one thousand seven hundred and fifty miles in a minute, and a hundred and five thousand miles an hour,-that even Saturn, with all his assemblage of rings and moons, should be carried along his course with a velocity of twenty-two thousand miles an hour, that some of the comets, when near the sun, should fly with the amazing velocity of eight hundred thousand miles an hour, that, in all probability, the sun himself, and all his attending planets, besides their own proper motions, are carried around some distant centre at the rate of more than sixty thousand miles every hour; and that thousands and millions of systems are moving in the same rapid manner, are facts so astonishing, and so far exceeding every thing we behold around us on the surface of the earth, that the imagination is overpowered and confounded at the idea of the astonishing forces which are in operation throughout the universe, and of the power and energy by which they are produced; and every rational being feels a sublime pleasure in the contemplation of such objects which is altogether unknown to the ignorant mind.

The vast and immeasurable spaces which intervene between the great bodies of the universe likewise convey

*The planet Venus.

+ The planet Mercury,