THE HEAVENS.—Amédée Guillemin
What are the heavens? Where the shores of that limitless ocean; where the bottom of that unfathomable abyss?
What are those brilliant points—those innumerable stars, which, never dim, shine out unceasingly from the dark profound? Are they sown broadcast—orderless, with no other bond save that which perspective lends to them? Or, if not immovable, as we have so long imagined, if not golden nails fixed to a crystal vault, whither are they bound? And, finally, what are the parts assigned to the sun, our earth, and all the earths attendant on the glorious orb of day in this tremendous concert of celestial spheres—this sublime harmony of the universe?
These are magnificent problems of which the most fertile imagination would have in vain attempted the solution, if, for the greater glory of the human mind, astronomy—first born of the sciences—had not at length come to our aid.
How wonderful is the power of man! Chained down to the surface of the earth, an intelligent atom on a grain of sand lost in the immensity of a space, he invents instruments which multiply a thousand-fold his vision, he sounds the depths of the ether, gauges the visible universe, and counts the myriads of stars which people it; next, studying their most complicated movements, he measures exactly their dimensions and the distances of the nearest of them from the earth, and next deduces their masses; then, discovering in the seeming disorder of the stellar groupings real bonds of union, he at last evolves order from apparent confusion.
Nor is this all. Rising by a supreme flight of thought to the most abstract speculations, he discovers the laws which regulate all celestial movements, and defines the nature of the universal force which sustains the worlds.
Such are the fruits of the unceasing labors of twenty generations of astronomers. Such the result of the genius and of the patient perseverance of men who have devoted themselves for two thousand years to the study of the phenomena of the heavens. The Chaldean shepherds were, they say, the first astronomers. We can well believe it. Dwelling in the midst of vast plains, where the mildness of the seasons permitted them to pass the night in the open air, where the clear sky unfolded before them perpetually the most glorious scenes, they ought to have been, and they were, contemplative astronomers. And all of us would be what they were did not the rigor of our climate and our variable atmosphere so often prevent us observing the heavens; and did not, moreover, the turmoil and cares of civilized life deprive us of the necessary leisure.
Nothing is more fitted to elevate the mind toward the infinite than the pensive contemplation of the starry vault in the silent calm of night. A thousand fires sparkle in all parts of the sombre azure of the sky. Varied in color and brilliancy, some shine with a vivid light, perpetually changing and twinkling; others, again, with a more constant one—more tranquil and soft; while very many only send us their rays intermittently, as if they could scarce pierce the profundity of space.