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coveries of the Remains of intellectual races , even beneath the primitive azoic formations of the earth . " What sleeps beyond ? Another creation beneath , more glorious creatures entombed there ! the mortal coils of beings more lovely , purer , than man , may yet read to us the unexpected lesson that we have not been the first , and may not be the last , of the intellectual races which have been evoked into being .
Again , in what particulars are the other bodies of the universe fitted , with our globe , for the abode of life ? Surely life is preeminently the end of their creation ; we would even dare believe that there could be none higher . Lif ^ is the manifestation of the divine energies everywhere unfolding themselves about us . It is life that burthens every breeze , that welcomes every ray , that attends every
shower , that is the controlling instinct of the world . From the minutest to the greatest system , life is the great development . But how will this apply to those far distant bodies occupying orbits remote from ours ? Is there no other purpose in their vast size , their regular revolutions , their periodic changes , than to float on in silent grandeur , awing men , the dwellers on their companion planet ?
jProm the dim vault of sky , where , with the sublimity of an obscure object , they lie hidden from our perceptions , there marshal before us our seven companion planets with their numerous satellites , and these how like our own ! They are opaque as we are , solid , have each a double motion ; and , as far as we can decide , possess a
corresponding physical structure ; the two i ^/ r ^ -terrestrial , Mercury and Venus , and one , Mars , of the # r £ ra-terrestrial , have a mean length of days , within a minute , of twenty-four hours , the length of our day ; and the mean of the days of Jupiter , Saturn , and Uranus , are coincident with the length of Jupiter ' s days .
Are there then seed time and harvest , times of joy and gladness , and periods of woe and despair similar to our own experiences ? Shall we not fondly cherish the thought , that in these spheres there is a still higher range of intellect , a still more subtle link , that binds man to the Supreme source of his life and intelligence ? Upon the terrestrial surface there are gradations of mind : one man digs , another
builds ; a four-feet ditch is the limit of one ' s powers , a St . Paul ' s or St . Peter ' s the construction of another ' s . One man utters twenty connected words , another builds argument upon argument , illustration upon illustration , and volumes result . By this gradation we rise from the blank minds which throng our thoroughfares , to the teachers of our science and the founders of our literature .
Occasionally , in the world ' s history , a mysterious fire brightens the moral horizon , a Plato appears . Centuries roll on , and at great intervals , a Shakespeare , a Milton , and a Newton , burn in all their glory , and these are our highest developments of intellectual power . But one Bacon , one Newton , one Shakespeare appears , alone of earth ' s children seeming to connect us with the Infinite , in intelligence . Suppose that these planets are the abodes of life , and that that life is as far removed from ours as are the credited powers of aninlal
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
coveries of the Remains of intellectual races , even beneath the primitive azoic formations of the earth . " What sleeps beyond ? Another creation beneath , more glorious creatures entombed there ! the mortal coils of beings more lovely , purer , than man , may yet read to us the unexpected lesson that we have not been the first , and may not be the last , of the intellectual races which have been evoked into being .
Again , in what particulars are the other bodies of the universe fitted , with our globe , for the abode of life ? Surely life is preeminently the end of their creation ; we would even dare believe that there could be none higher . Lif ^ is the manifestation of the divine energies everywhere unfolding themselves about us . It is life that burthens every breeze , that welcomes every ray , that attends every
shower , that is the controlling instinct of the world . From the minutest to the greatest system , life is the great development . But how will this apply to those far distant bodies occupying orbits remote from ours ? Is there no other purpose in their vast size , their regular revolutions , their periodic changes , than to float on in silent grandeur , awing men , the dwellers on their companion planet ?
jProm the dim vault of sky , where , with the sublimity of an obscure object , they lie hidden from our perceptions , there marshal before us our seven companion planets with their numerous satellites , and these how like our own ! They are opaque as we are , solid , have each a double motion ; and , as far as we can decide , possess a
corresponding physical structure ; the two i ^/ r ^ -terrestrial , Mercury and Venus , and one , Mars , of the # r £ ra-terrestrial , have a mean length of days , within a minute , of twenty-four hours , the length of our day ; and the mean of the days of Jupiter , Saturn , and Uranus , are coincident with the length of Jupiter ' s days .
Are there then seed time and harvest , times of joy and gladness , and periods of woe and despair similar to our own experiences ? Shall we not fondly cherish the thought , that in these spheres there is a still higher range of intellect , a still more subtle link , that binds man to the Supreme source of his life and intelligence ? Upon the terrestrial surface there are gradations of mind : one man digs , another
builds ; a four-feet ditch is the limit of one ' s powers , a St . Paul ' s or St . Peter ' s the construction of another ' s . One man utters twenty connected words , another builds argument upon argument , illustration upon illustration , and volumes result . By this gradation we rise from the blank minds which throng our thoroughfares , to the teachers of our science and the founders of our literature .
Occasionally , in the world ' s history , a mysterious fire brightens the moral horizon , a Plato appears . Centuries roll on , and at great intervals , a Shakespeare , a Milton , and a Newton , burn in all their glory , and these are our highest developments of intellectual power . But one Bacon , one Newton , one Shakespeare appears , alone of earth ' s children seeming to connect us with the Infinite , in intelligence . Suppose that these planets are the abodes of life , and that that life is as far removed from ours as are the credited powers of aninlal