has prescribed to himself would have permitted him to extend the scope of his remarks, clothed, as they are, in such animated language, to embrace a far wider range of application. The frame of nature is not bounded by that narrow limit which is commonly understood by the term physics. Life, thought, and moral and social relation, are all equally natural-equally elements of the great scheme of the Kosmos with matter and magnetism. The only imaginable reason why the sciences growing out of these ideas are not regarded and handled, or have not hitherto effectually been so, as branches of natural science and inductive inquiry, is the great difficulty of arriving at true statements of facts in some, owing to the conflict of partial interests, and the great danger and consequent heavy responsibility attending experiments in others. These obstacles can only be removed by the general enlightenment of mankind, enabling them to perceive that their true interests require truth in the statement of facts; deliberate caution in undertaking, and patience—long, calm, enduring patience-and hearty coöperation, in watching the working out of social and legislative experiments.

knowledge of these latter laws, had this word, the| To all this, of course, we heartily subscribe; key of the whole riddle, remained unpronounced. and we only wish that the limit M. de Humboldt The craving of the philosophic mind is for explanation, i. e. for the breaking up of complex phenomena into familiar sequences, or equally familiar transitional changes, or cotemporary manifestations; which, under the names of cause and effect, we are content to receive (at least temporarily) as ultimate facts, and which nothing but perfect familiarity divests of that marvellous character which they really possess-which are only not looked upon as miraculous because they are usual. When we work our way up to facts of this character, physical inquiry ends, and speculation begins. Very few such ultimate facts. have hitherto been arrived at in physics; and it is to the increase of their number, by future inquiry, that we must look for any prospect of erasing any one of them from the list, i. e. of explaining it. No doubt explanation must ever be imperfect, if quantitative laws be wanting as a feature. But the first, at least the most necessary office of experimental philosophy, is, the detection of the influential thing, the ultimate fact, or facts, on which explanation hinges -its subsequent, and, in that sense, subordinate, though still most useful and important one; to discover the formal and quantitative laws of that influence. If, indeed, it be said, that the proposition announcing these ultimate facts is a law, in the sense of the word intended, we protest against the abuse of language, which confounds, under one form of expression, the detection of the law itself, and the subject matter of the law-the quod loquimur, with the de quo.

With the richness of idea and command of resource which natural knowledge confers, civilization goes hand in hand. The remarks of M. de Humboldt on this part of his subject are so pointed and impressive, that we cannot refuse ourselves the pleasure of quoting them :

A great and wondrous attempt is making in civilized Europe at the present time: neither more nor less than an attempt to stave off, ad infinitum, the tremendous visitation of war; and, by removing or alleviating the positive checks to the growth of population, to diminish the stringency of the preventive ones, and to subsist continually increasing masses on a continually increasing scale of comfort. May it be successful! But the only conditions on which it can be so are, that nature be laid yearly more and more under contribution to human wants; and that the masses themselves understand and go along with the exertions making in their favor in a spirit of amicable and rational "The clearer our insight into the connection of conformity. To no other quarter than to the phenomena, the more easily we shall emancipate progress of science can we look for the least ourselves from the error of those who do not per- glimpse of a fulfilment of the first of these conceive that, for the intellectual cultivation and for the ditions. Neither the activity of hope, nor the prosperity of nations, all branches of natural knowl-energy of despair, acting by stationary means on edge are alike important, whether the measuring unvarying elements, can coerce them into a geoand describing portion, or the examination of chemical constituents, or the investigation of the physical metrically increasing productiveness. Science must forces by which all matter is pervaded. * wave unceasingly her magic wand, and point unAn equal appreciation of all parts of natural knowl- ceasingly her divining rod. The task now laid edge is an essential requirement of the present on her, however, is not of her own seeking. She epoch, in which the material wealth and the in- declines altogether so dread a responsibility, while creasing prosperity of nations are in great measure yet declaring her readiness to aid to the utmost based on the more enlightened employment of nat- of her powers; claiming only the privilege, essenural products and forces. * * *The most superficial glance at the present condition of European tial to their available exertion, of free, undisturbed, states shows that those which linger in the race and dispassionate thought, and calling upon every cannot hope to escape the partial diminution, and, class to do its duty; the higher in aiding her apperhaps, the final annihilation of their resources. plications, the lower in conforming to her rules. The danger must be averted by the earnest cultivation of natural knowledge. Knowledge and thought are at once the delight and the prerogative of man; but they are also a part of the wealth of nations, and often afford to them an abundant indemnification for the more sparing bestowal of natural riches."

In that part of his work which treats of the limits and method of exposition of the physical description of the universe, M. de Humboldt takes considerable pains to represent the "Science of the Kosmos" as a separate and independent department of knowledge, distinct in scope and kind from

ences.

We therefore entirely agree with our author in the propriety of that arrangement of his work which gives the precedence of treatment to the celestial over the "telluric" view of nature; and prefaces the description of our own globe by that of the sidereal and planetary system. And whether such description be properly regarded as the exposition of a body of science, or (as we should rather feel disposed to look upon it) a sort of epos, a noble oratorio, or a grand spectacle, we are delighted to receive it at his hands, and to throw our selves into that frame of mind for its reception which shall be best calculated to heighten the impression, and do justice to the exponent.

a mere encyclopædic aggregation of physical sci- | sun of our own system, and all those remote: We concern ourselves little whether in suns which glitter in the firmament. The very this he have succeeded in making out a useful and different measure of these effects must not prevent available distinction; admitting, as he does, that the physical philosopher, engaged in tracing a in his mode of conceiving and handling it, it is, in general picture of nature, from noticing the coneffect, the aggregrate, by simple juxtaposition, of nection and coëxtensive dominion of similar forces." two separate and very unequal portions, similar in (Kosmos, p. 146., Transl.) character so far as the less can be similar to the more complex. He regards it, in short, as physical geography enlarged by such a description of the heavens and their contents as shall correspond in plan and in conception (so far as our knowledge extends) to that description of the earth and its denizens which is intended by the former designation. In so far, then, as physical geography is entitled to be termed a separate and independent science, kosmography, or the science of the Kosmos, is so also, and a more general one, including the other. A Chinese map of the globe is a map of the globe, and not a mere map of China, though the Flowery Land figure therein in rich detail of city, stream, and province; and though Europe, Asia, Africa, and America exist, for the most part, in mere outline, and occupying an extent of surface altogether disproportioned to their true extent and importance. This is not the fault of the Celestial Arrowsmith. Had he known more of the globe, he would have given his countrymen a better map. Our simile, however, is faulty in one respect. What we know of the contents of space exterior to our globe we at least know truly—at all events, we can separate our knowledge from our ignorance; and it happens, fortunately, that what escapes our view is precisely that which, if seen, would merely serve to puzzle and perplex us; while the great and obvious features which strike us are precisely those which we are best able to reduce to general laws, and to view in systematic connection, and which reveal to us, in its grandest form, the Unity of the Kosmos. The all-pervading power of gravitation, that mysterious reality by which every material being in the universe is placed in instant and influential relation with every other, springs forward in a state of disengagement and prominence on the contemplation of the celestial movements which it, perhaps, might never have assumed had not the opportunity been afforded us of so contemplating it, apart from the distracting influence of corpuscular forces which, in innumerable instances, mask and overlie it in its exhibition on the surface of our planet. And again: the phenomenon of light, its uniform properties and equal velocity from whatever quarter of space it reaches us, and the certainty those properties afford of the existence of a perfectly uniform mechanism, coëxtensive with space itself, continually occupied in the discharge of the most important of all offices, that of conveying at once information and vital stimulus from every region of space to every other -facts of this kind, were there no other, would suffice to force upon our minds the clear perception of a unity of plan and of action in the constitution of nature. "A connection is maintained, by means of light and radiant heat, both with the

Taking our stand, therefore, on the extreme verge of the visible creation, let us for an instant look about us, ere we descend with him, like the angelic messenger in Milton, through stars, nebulæ, and systems, to this planetary sphere and its central sun. Where are we? Is there such an extreme verge? This question, which lies at the very threshold of an exposition of the Kosmos, per descensum, is one which has so little to recommend it as a matter of discussion that we certainly should not mention it here, had it not got involved in an astronomical speculation of a very singular nature. The assumption that the extent of the starry firmament is literally infinite has been made, by one of the greatest of astronomers, the late Dr. Olbers, the basis of a conclusion that the celestial spaces are in some slight degree deficient in transparency; so that all beyond a certain distance is, and must forever remain, unseen; the geometrical progression of the extinction of light far outrunning the effect of any conceivable increase in the power of our telescopes. Were it not so, it is argued, every part of the celestial concave ought to shine with the brightness of the solar disc; since no visual ray could be so directed as not, in some point or other of its infinite length, to encounter such a disc. With this peculiar form of the argument we have little concern. It appears to us, indeed, with all deference to so high an authority, invalid; since nothing is easier than to imagine modes of systematic arrangement of the stars in space (entirely in consonance with what we see around us of the principle of subordinate grouping actually followed out) which shall strike away the only foundation on which it can be made to rest, while yet fully vindicating the absolute infinity of their number. It is the conclusion only which it appears to us important to notice, as having recently been attempted to be established on grounds of direct statistical enumeration of stars of different orders of brightness, by the illustrious astronomer of Pulkova, in a remarkable work, (Etudes d'Astronomie Stellaire,) and even some rude approx

imation made to the rate of extinction. It would accumulating in the opposite direction, and that lead us far beyond our limits to attempt even to such "nebulous stars" may, after all, be only exgive a general idea of his reasonings, but one re-treme cases of central condensation, such as two or mark on the whole subject we cannot forbear. three "nebula," usually so called, offer a near apLight, it is true, is easily disposed of. Once ab-proach to. Apart, then, from these singular bodies, sorbed, it is extinct forever, and will trouble us no and leaving open the questions they go to raise, and more. But with radiant heat the case is otherwise. apart from the consideration of such peculiar cases This, though absorbed, remains still effective in as planetary and annular nebulæ, the great majority heating the absorbing medium, which must either of nebulæ may be described as globular or spheincrease in temperature, the process continuing, ad | roidal aggregates of stars arranged about a centre, infinitum, or, in its turn becoming radiant, give out from every point at every instant as much heat as it receives.

the interior strata more closely than the exterior, according to very various laws of progressive density, but the strata of equal density being more nearly spherical according to their proximity to the centre. Many of these groups contain hundreds, nay, thousands, of stars.

Besides these, there exist nebulæ of a totally different description; of vastly greater apparent dimension, and of very irregular and capricious forms, of which the well-known nebula in Orion is an example. They form, evidently, a class apart from the others, not only in aspect, but also as regards their situation in the heavens; for whereas the former congregate together chiefly in a great nebulous district remote from the Milky Way, or are otherwise scattered over the whole heavens, (though by no means so as to form what M. de Humboldt terms a “nebulous milky way," or zone of nebulæ surrounding the sphere,) these only occur in the immediate vicinity of the galaxy, and may fairly be considered, if not as integrant portions, at least as outliers of it. Their forms, therefore, may be considered as in some degree indicative of the true form of that starry stratum, could we contemplate it from a distance, so far, at

Of the supposed luminiferous ether itself, as one of the material or quasi-material contents of space, M. de Humboldt says nothing. He waives, designedly, at least in the present volume, any allusion to that, and all other theoretical conceptions. The view of creation which he takes, and which we must take with him, is so purely and entirely objective, so closely confined to what Mr. Mill would call the collocations of the Kosmos, that even the Newtonian law of gravitation, with its noble train of mathematical consequences, is excluded from all direct and special notice. We must not, therefore, wonder, but accept it as part of the determinate plan of the work, that light itself is spoken of only incidentally, as affording a measure of sidereal distance by its velocity, and as conveying to our eyes the images of remote sidereal objects, not as they now exist, but as they existed years or ages ago; or that no account is given of the Gaussian generalizations of the theory of the terrestrial magnetism-a subject, of which M. de Humboldt is so preeminently cognizant, that it must have required the greatest self-least, that we may reasonably suppose it quite as control, and the most entire satisfaction with his pre-conceived views of the limits of his subject, to have avoided dilating on it.

irregular and complex as we observe these, its appendages, actually to be.

M. de Humboldt leans, as might be expected The most remote bodies which the telescopes from one especially conversant with organic forms, disclose to us are, probably, the nebulæ. These, to that view which represents the nebulæ as sideas their name imports, are dim and misty-looking real systems, in process of gradual formation by objects, very few of which are visible to the un- the mutual attraction of their parts, and by the assisted sight. Powerful telescopes resolve most absorption of the strictly nebulous element into of them into stars, and more in proportion to the stellar bodies. "The process of condensation," force of the instrument; while, at the same time, he says, "which was part of the doctrine of Anevery increase of telescopic power brings fresh and aximenes, and of the whole Ionic school, appears unresolved nebulæ into view. A natural general- to be here going on before our eyes. The subject ization would lead us to conclude that all such of conjoint investigation and conjecture has a pecuobjects are nothing but groups of stars, forming liar charm for the imagination. Throughout the systems, differing in size, remoteness, and mode range of animated existence, and of moving forces of aggregation. This conclusion would, indeed, in the physical universe, there is an especial fasbe almost irresistible but for a few rare examples, cination in the recognition of that which is becomwhere a single star of considerable brightness ap-ing, or about to be, even greater than in that which pears surrounded with a delicate and extensive is, though the former be indeed no more than a new atmosphere, offering no indication of its consisting of stars. Such objects have given rise to the conception of a self-luminous nebulous matter, of vaporous or gaseous nature, of which these photospheres, and, perhaps, some entire nebulæ, may consist, and to the further conception of a gradual subsidence or condensation of such matter into stars and systems. It cannot be denied, how ever, that the weight of induction appears to be

condition of matter already existing; for of the act of creation itself, the original calling forth of existence out of non-existence, we have no experience, nor can we form any conception of it."

That the whole firmament of stars visible to us, even with the help of telescopes, belongs to that vast sidereal stratum which we call the Galaxy, seems hardly to admit of doubt. The actual form of this stratum; further than that it is not

improperly characterized as such, can hardly be|tion by Herschel, has now been distinctly traced said to be known with any approach to certainty; in fifty or sixty instances, (M. de Humboldt, anticbut that its extent in a direct line outwards is enor-ipating what will doubtless one day prove to be a mously greater in some directions than in others, fact, says 2800,) among which occur examples of and that in one portion of its extent it is, as it were, periodic revolutions of 200, 182, 117, 61, 44, and eleft, and contorted, in others lengthened into pro- even 17 years, and of orbits, in some cases so eccesses stretching far into space, seems to rank among centric as to be quite cometary, in others nearly the positive conclusions of astronomy. In certain circular. Some again are concluded, with much directions its extent would seem to be unfathoma- probability, to revolve on their axes, from the obble to our best telescopes; in others, there is rea-servation of regular periodic changes in their lusson to believe we see through and beyond it, even in its own plane.

Of the distance of the stars of which this vast stratum consists, at least of some of the nearest of them, we are beginning, at length, to possess some certain knowedge. The bright star a Centauri has a measured parallax (as the observations of Henderson and Maclear teach us) of nearly a whole second, (09128,) which places it at a distance from us equal to 226,000 radii of the earth's orbit. That of 61 Cygni has been ascertained by Bessel to be no less than 592,200 such radii, while the observations of Struve place a Lyræ at 789,600 of similar units from our system. Such is the scale of the system to which we belong, such the magnitudes we are led to regard as small, in comparison with its actual extent! The number of stars whose distance is imperfectly known to us at present is about thirty-five, seven of which may be considered as determined, with some approach to certainty, by the recent researches of Mr. Peters.

tre; while others vary in no regular and certain periods, undergoing great and abrupt changes, for which no probable cause has yet been assigned. In one remarkable instance a change of color would appear to have taken place. Sirius, which is now one of the whitest of the stars, is characterized by Ptolemy as red, or at least ruddy. 'O dè Zsígios, drónuogos, is his expression, speaking pointedly of its color, and not of its scintillations.

100 suns.

Not the least surprising, is the actual and positive knowledge we have obtained of the weight or quantity of matter contained in at least one of the binary stars, 61 Cygni; from whose orbital motion, compared with its distance, Bessel has concluded that the conjoint mass of its two individuals is "neither much more nor much less than half the mass of our sun." It appears as a star of the sixth magnitude. From the photometric experiments of Wollaston on a Lyra, compared with what we know of its distance, its actual emission of light may be gathered to be not less than 5 times that of the sun. Sirius, which is nine times Among the countless swarm of what are com- as bright as a Lyræ, and whose parallax is insenmonly called fixed stars, there is not one, proba-sible, cannot, therefore, be estimated at less than bly, which really merits the name. In by far the great majority, a minute, but regularly progressive, change of place is observed to take place; and, from a careful examination of these movements, as observed in stars visible in Europe, it has been concluded that a portion at least of them is only apparent, and arises from a real motion of our own sun, carrying with it the whole planetary system, towards a point in the constellation Hercules, in R. A. 259° 35′ decl. 34° 34' north. This extraordinary conclusion, resting as it does on the independent and remarkably agreeing calculations of five different and eminent astronomers, from data afforded by northern stars, has, within the last few months, received a striking confirmation by the researches of Mr. Galloway, who has arrived at the very same conclusion, from calculations founded on the proper motions of stars in the southern hemisphere, not included among those used by his predecessors. In this path the sun moves with the prodigious velocity of 400,000 miles, or nearly its own semi-diameter, per diem.

Non-luminous stars have been conjectured to exist, and Bessel even considered that some irregularities, supposed to subsist in the proper motions of Procyon and Sirius, could no other way be ac counted for than by supposing them to be revolving about invisible central bodies. The illustrious astronomer of Pulkova, in the work we have already had occasion to cite, has, however, by destroying the evidence of irregularity by a careful revision of all the recorded observations, rendered it unnecessary to resort to such an hypothesis.

Neither have attempts been wanting to deduce from the proper motions of the stars the situation in space of the "Central Sun," about which the whole firmament revolves. Lambert placed it in the nebula of Orion; Maedler, very recently, in the Pleiades, on grounds which, however, appear to us anything but conclusive.

The vast interval which separates our system from its nearest neighbors among the fixed stars, is a blank which even the imaginations of astronoIndependent of the movements of translation mers have been unable to people with denizens of not accounted for by this cause, several of the any definite character, other than a few lost comets stars have a rotary motion, forming pairs or binary slowly groping out their benighted way to other systems, called double stars, revolving about each systems, or torpidly lingering in aphelio, expecting other in regular elliptic orbits, governed by the their recall to the source of light and warmth. In Newtonian law of gravitation. This sort of con- the utter insulation of this huge intervening gulph, nection, suggested as theoretically probable by it is impossible not to perceive a guarantee against Mitchell, and demonstrated as a matter of observa- extraneous perturbation and foreign interference,

or to avoid tracing an extension of the very same us of the exceedingly firm grasp by which theory principle of subordinate grouping which secures has seized on this most complicated subject; by the satellites of our planets from too violent a per- the fact of the discovery having been made almost turbative action on the part of the central body. simultaneously by two geometers of different naIt thus assumes the character and importance of a tions, pursuing different courses of investigation, cosmical law; and, while it affords another and each in entire ignorance of the other's proceedmost striking indication of the unity of plan which ings, and arriving at what may fairly be termed pervades the universe, may lead us to believe that, the same identical place of the yet unseen planet. if other systems yet exist in the immensity of space, It is not a little remarkable that astronomy, the they may be separated from our own by intervals oldest, and, as it might be considered, the maso immense as to appear only as dim and nebu-turest among the sciences, is perhaps at this molous specks, or utterly and forever to elude our ment the most rapidly progressive of any, such is sight. the novelty as well as the magnitude of the facts which every year brings forth.

them.

Descending, now, with our guide through this vacuum inane to our own system, we shall for a M. de Humboldt in this division of his subject, moment depart from his arrangement to strike at presents us with a rapid, but an extremely strikonce upon its central body-our own sun. This, ing and well-digested view of the "collocations" indeed, can hardly be called a departure, since, by of our system; that is to say, of the actual aran extraordinary omission, we find no special notice rangement and distribution of its masses in respect taken by M. de Humboldt of this magnificent globe. of their magnitudes, densities, and distances from Yet, surely, there is matter of sufficient interest in the sun, their times of rotation on their axes, and what is known and seen of its physical constitution the extent of their provision with satellites. We and important peculiarities, to have justified, in- have never met with a better exposé of these pardeed to have required, their not being passed sub ticulars, grouped as they are under a variety of silentio in a physical description of the universe. If aspects, with the object of bringing into view the there be much, as yet mysterious, in its inexhaust-general relations, if any, which exist between ible emission of light and heat, there is also much in the mechanism by which that emission is pro"It has been proposed to consider the telescopic duced which is matter of ocular inspection. We planets," now eight in number, between Mars and know, for instance, that the sun is not simply an Jupiter, "with their more eccentric, intersecting, incandescent mass; that the luminous process, and greatly-inclined orbits, as forming a middle whatever its nature, is superficial only, being zone, or group, in our planetary system; and if we confined to two strata of phosphorescent clouds, follow out this view, we shall find that the comparison of the inner group of planets, comprising Merfloating in an atmosphere of considerable but imcury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars, with the outer perfect transparency, extending to a vast distance group, consisting of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus," (and beyond them; that these clouds are often driven Neptune,)" presents several striking contrasts. asunder by tumultuary movements of astonishing The planets of the inner group, which are nearer energy and extent, disclosing to our eyes the dark the sun, are of more moderate size, are denser, surface below; that the region in which these rotate round their respective axes more slowly, in movements take place is confined to an equatorial nearly equal periods, differing little from twentyfour hours, are less compressed at the poles, and, belt of about sixty degrees in breadth, being, how-with one exception, without satellites. The exterever, comparatively much less frequent in the im-nal planets are of much greater magnitude, mediate vicinity of the equator itself. We know, five times less dense, more than twice as rapid in moreover, that the time of its rotation (25 days) their rotation round their axes, more compressed at stands in decided and pointed dissonance with the the poles, and richer in moons in the proportion of Keplerian law of the planetary revolutions, and that seventeen" (eighteen) "to one." therefore the sun has most certainly not been formed by the simple subsidence of regularly rotating planetary matter gradually contracting in dimension by cooling; a fact which the advocates of the nebulous hypothesis must, therefore, render some other account of.

So soon as we descend to particulars, however, we find these general relations broken in upon by continual exceptions. The history of the discovery of Neptune has afforded a signal instance how little reliance could be placed on a law of collocation, which had begun to be considered as a fundamenThe primary planets known to us at the present tal relation pervading the whole system. Still, as moment are sixteen in number, including no less such laws, partially carried out, they possess a than five which have been added to the list since peculiar interest, especially when we consider the the publication of the Kosmos in 1845. The dis- exactness of numerical relation which holds good covery of one of these, Neptune, by the mere con- in several instances, and which leads irresistibly to sideration of the recorded perturbations of the speculate upon causes, as is the case with all close remotest planet previously known, by the theory numerical coincidences, which nothing can perof gravitation, as delivered by Newton, and ma-suade us to believe purely accidental when they tured by the French geometers, will ever be re-take place in matters of fact. Why, we are garded as the most glorious intellectual triumph tempted to ask, do the diurnal rotations of Mer of the present age. If anything could enhance its cury, the Earth, and Mars, agree to a minute? claim to be so considered, it is the assurance given | Why are the densities of the Sun, Jupiter, Ura