The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1828-12-10

seen from some OF the nearest planets, 1t il
but dull speck in the armament. Under
this conviction the astronomer must feel his
own comparative insignifcance and amidst
the sublimlty and grandeur of the material
universe, the prohdest spirit must be abased
and fitted for the reception of those noblel
truths which can be impressed only on a
humble and softened heart. He, indeed
who has rightly interpreted the handwriting
OF God in the heavens must be well prepared
to appreciate it in the record of his reveal
ed will.
Though the study of astronomy thus pos
sesses peculiar claims upon our attention,
the history of the science,-of the steps by
which it successfully attained its present
state of perfection, is, in another point of
view, of nearly equal interest. Commence
ing IN the earliest ages, and carried on with
Dut little interruption 30 our own day, it
forms the most continuous history of the pro-
gress of human reason it exhibits to us the
finest picture of the mind struggling against
its own prejudices and errors, and final
| ~ surmountfng the pnys1caI ana moran Darrl-
er which appeared to have set limit to its
efforts; and it displays to us in the most in
structive form the labors and the triumphs of
men, who, by the universal suffrage of ages,
| species, and as the lights of the civilized
world.
| 1.-THE following paragraph is near the close
of the review
1t is scarcely possible, we think, to peruse
the preceding details concerning the history
| and present advanced state Of astronomy,
brief and imperfect as they are, without
looking forward with the most intense in
terest to the future progress of the science.
Even within our own system much remains
to be investigated. The nature of the sun,
| and the constitution of its surface in rela-
ton to the more or less copious discharge
of light and heat the physical condition of
the moon, which may yet exhibit among
her mountains the works of living agency |;
the theory of the four new planetary frag-
ments, which hold out to physical astronomy
some of its most perplexing problems the
forms, the rotations, and the densities of
most ofthe secondary planets,-are all sub
Jects {raught with the deepest interest to
astronomers. The comets, too, those illu-
sorry bodies of which we scarcely know
whence they come, or whittier they go, have
now been brought within the grasp of regu-
lar observation. The discovery of two
comets with short periods, one of three and
third years, revolving within the orbit of
Jupiter, and the other with a period of five
years, revolving within the orbit of Saturn,
enables us to observe them period after Pc
Rod, and to study their motions as well as
their physical constitution. But how shall
we describe the future prospects of sideral
astronomy! In our own nebule we may
trace 'ne notion of the solar system round
some distant centre; we may discover the
causes which produce the phenomena of
variable stars, and we may witness the ex-
tension of the law of gravity to the move
ments of ordinary, and even of more COM
( plicated, systems. Among the nebule be-
yond our own, discoveries still more extra
ordinary await us. May we not see even
the operations of those powerful agents by
which whole systems are formed and of
those still more tremendous forces by which
other systems are destroyed In the
changes of particular nebule, and in the
condensation of nehulous matter into lucid
centres, and even into central stars, we re-
cognize the first ofthese agents and in the
sudden disappearance of the most brilliant
stars, we have some indication of the sec-
ond. Thus may we study, in these distant
regions, the active operations of creative
power; and thus, in relation to the past and
the future in our globe, we may be per-
mitted to witness the types of those great
events which are necessarily excluded from
the short span of our existence.