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Show 600 TIIE MONOGENISTS AND paganism, she sought to fr·io-hton humanity by tho myth of Pr·omothcus. he struggled to depict, with the colors of impiety, the man who was o-oino- to demand of Nature its scct·cts and its laws; and s}to man:clcd 0 him beforehand to a rock: but time, far from riveting the chai1t; has bcou unc asingly detaching it. 'l'he spread of man's discoveries, tho importance of his victories, compel evermore tho public conscience to admire, as a noble indopcndcnco, as a courageous cfl:ort, that which theology wished not to regard but as a haughty attempt that the All-Powerful bad punished by ill-fortunes and chasti omenta. We willingly approach, now-a-days, tho tree of knowledge; and we no more believe that it is Satan who presents us with its poisoned fruits." 668 "16. It is snid that the telescope of IT erschcll [that of Lord Rosse bas since pcl'fol·mcd mightier wonders], which has unveiled to us ncbulro before unknown, magnified twelve thousand times. If a glass were made of sufficient power to magnify a million times, tho milky-ways would be multiplied peodigiously; and would seem to us so crowded together, that they would form but one spherical vault of suns shining in those unknown 1·cgions. And yet all these suns arc separated from each other by profound deserts of darkness! llore, bcfo1·o this wide circle of bright bodies, tho power of human view must stop: here must be the barrier which shuts fi·om our vision tho rest of the creation. But this is not tho limit of the universe. "17. llcro thought and language fail to express the grandeur of the reality. We can scarcely imagine it by the assistance of time and space. 'l'o overload the mind with accumulations of time a11d space, is still to prescribe limits to that which has none,-in adding duration to duration and extent to extent. Let us suppose as mauy anna and worlds as we have enumerated: in our transports of enthusiasm, let us bound beyond myriads of spaces a thousand and a thousand times more vast: let us unite all those heavens, and exaggerate the number of them as far as the imagination ,can reach,still, beyond this immeasut·ablo portion of the Cl,'eation in which tho da?:Y.l d thought is lost, the universe continues without bounds and withont measure. "18. Overwhelmed by tho ma;jesty of the universe, human intelligence sinks into a state of insensibility before its unfathomable 1168 ALFRED MAURY, E1Mi 1ur le1 Ltgende1 Pieu1e1 du Moyen-Age; ou Examer dec~ q1i'elle& renferment de merveilleux, d'apraa le1 connaislat!tes- que journiuent de no1 four' l'arc"Culogie, la tMologie, la philosophic et la pliy&iotogie mtdicate: Pu.ris, 8vo, 1848, "Introduction," pp. xix-xx. THE POLYGENISTS. GOl d pths. Those vast and inscrutable abyRses, whi ·h man sees but imporlcdly, ar only a point in that infi.uity of spa e wl1cre tho most solid Lhonghts, the most profound meditations, and the science of all ag s, arc lost. "19. In presence of this grand spectacle, man finds within himself an i1t structivo sentiment, which manifests to him an Almighty and Creative Vower, as su rely as his eyes show him the light. 'l'lten creation is explained, its object is understood. To feel the existence of infinity is to have a revelation of ctomity,-to contemplate Nature is to take pleasure in what is bcst,-to study it is to seck the truth,- it is to take the path whi ·h leads to GOD,-to r cognize the workman in his work. And why should it not be so, when Iris glory is written in the heavens? Each sun is a letter of llis name, [tJtd His name is infinite! What more striking evidence of the DiviHo thought than that of the work which received and reflected it? The uni verso is then to the human race what it has ·been, i , and always will be: the daily and eternal instructions of a Master who wishes to show Himself in tho harmonies which llo has placed in it: a magnificent expression of tho inaccessible intelligence which embrace , posse sea, and holds dominion over all: a sublime act of the Divine understanding, which, in the eloquent simpli ·ity of its art, made usc only of a single substance to produce, at a single cast, tho grain of sand which tho wave rolla on our shores, and the spacious co utincnts which rise from our globe: an iniin ito su baLance, the first and only one of all things, and, at tho same time, the universal and immediate means a1 pointed. for the government of space, matter, movement, and life: the element and vclticlc of tho phenomena perceived by our organs, susceptible of exer ·ising the most delicate functions-those even which arc imperceptible to our s nscs, impond rable to our instruments, and yet able to break in pieces wodds, with a violence incalculable, in tltc unbounded employment of ita strength: which is itself its own gcncmting and preserving principle: which never creates nor annihilates, but organizes aud develops life, regulates the superabundance of it hy death, and thus continuos the untr~ublcd course o!' N~turo: which is continually bringing to pcrfcctwn, and remams 1ts If without cl1arwc: which proJ.uccs tho most varied contrasts, nnd acts without any ~ariation: which bas scattered in the wide plain.s of infinity thousands of millions of centres of m~vcmcnt appropna~cd to aeh of them and reduces them to one: wlnch draws from umty ita incxhauHtibl~ rcsourceA, and contains them in unity: in fino, whose cfl:ects arc so many innumerable combinations, and who:;e cause is unique and profoundly simple. For one single matter, / 11 /lt 'I 't ,li |