tET. iv. Tycho Brahe, and Copernicus. 55

and least dimensions of things are placed atan immense distance from each other. We canperceive no bounds to the vast expanse in whichnatural causes operate, and are no less at a losswhen we endeavour to trace things to theirelements, and to discover the limits which con-clude the subdivisions of matter.

The objects which we commonly call greatvaniih, when we contemplate the vast body ofthe earth; the terraqueous globe itself is soonlost in the solar system ; in some parts it is seenonly as a distant star; and in others is unknown,or visible only at certain times, by vigilant ob-servers, assisted, perhaps, by instruments likeour telescopes. The fun himself dwindles intoa star. Saturn’s vast orbit, and the orbits ofall the comets, croud into a point, when viewedfrom numberless places between the earth andthe nearest sixed stars. Other funs give light toilluminate other systems, where our fun’s raysare unperceived, but these also are swallowed upin the immeasurable expanse. Even all thesystems of the stars, which sparkle in the clearestIky, must possess but a small part of that spaceover which such systems are dispersed; sincemore stars are discovered in one constellation,by the telescope, than the naked eye perceivesin the whole heavens.

And after we have risen thus high, and left£ll definite measures so far behind us, we findE 4 ourselves