that, in the physical and mental constitution of our own nature—with reference also to the inferior animals, both the feeble and the powerful, the tractable and the untamed—in relation too to the vegetable productions of the earth, whether flourishing in green savannas, or rooted in the clefts of the rock—we have a law of gradual formation now operating, which vindicates the idea from the charge of vain conceit, that an analogical law has operated with reference to the earth itself, and the various worlds that compose our system, supported—as the hypothesis is—by such significant evidences as the nebulous appearances in the heavens. From the view which has now been taken, it is evidently no doubtful point to us— “Whether the sun, predominant in heaven, Rise on the earth, or earth rise on the sun; He from the east his flaming rond begin, Or she from the west her silent course advance, With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps On her soft axle.” . . . . How incumbent the duty upon us, then, as we have largely benefited by our predecessors, that—as faithful stewards of their gifts—we should hand them down to posterity with an increase of value! How grand, and yet how simple, those views of the universe, upon the evidence of which we are now invited to gaze! The Sun, a central orb, attended by a stately cortège of planets, forming a system under the empire of law—a system not unique, but a general type of others as countless as the members of the stellar host, whose front ranks alone come within the range of telescopic vision: systems, probably, not physically insulated, but bound together by fine relationships, the nature of which—judging from the progress of the past, it is not arrogant to presume—will yet be revealed to the understanding of man. These are not ingenious theories—splendid conjectures; but established facts, and sober anticipations based upon them. To live and learn is the high vocation of humanity; one of the appointed ends which the great Artificer of existence contemplates in its continued series: the generations that are to come improving upon the acquirements of that which now is. Nor can we fix any limit to the growth of knowledge in relation to the physical universe, clear and insurmountable in the present state as are its bounds with respect to the spiritual world. Who can descry a resting point in the wilderness of space?—discern a barrier to the range of the creation? Vast as are the regions that have been entered, there are vaster amplitudes unapproached beyond them, toward which the mind may advance in endless progression; often indeed faltering in the pilgrimage beneath the burden of those conceptions of space and magnitude which immensity suggests, but still going onward. [Illustration] * * * * * =HYMN TO THE SUN.= =FROM THE GREEK OF DIONYSIUS.=