death-bed to know that, instead of having gone intuitively and thus
unbecomingly, he had, in fact, proceeded decorously and
legitimately--that is to say Hog-ishly, or at least Ram-ishly--into the
vast halls where lay gleaming, untended, and hitherto untouched by
mortal hand--unseen by mortal eye--the imperishable and priceless secrets
of the Universe!

"Yes, Kepler was essentially a _theorist_; but this title, _now_ of so
much sanctity, was, in those ancient days, a designation of supreme
contempt. It is only _now_ that men begin to appreciate that divine old
man--to sympathize with the prophetical and poetical rhapsody of his
ever-memorable words. For _my_ part," continues the unknown
correspondent, "I glow with a sacred fire when I even think of them, and
feel that I shall never grow weary of their repetition:--in concluding
this letter, let me have the real pleasure of transcribing them once
again:--'_I care not whether my work be read now or by posterity. I can
afford to wait a century for readers when God himself has waited six
thousand years for an observer. I triumph. I have stolen the golden
secret of the Egyptians. I will indulge my sacred fury._'"

Here end my quotations from this very unaccountable and, perhaps,
somewhat impertinent epistle; and perhaps it would be folly to comment,
in any respect, upon the chimerical, not to say revolutionary, fancies
of the writer--whoever he is--fancies so radically at war with the
well-considered and well-settled opinions of this age. Let us proceed,
then, to our legitimate thesis, _The Universe_.

This thesis admits a choice between two modes of discussion:--We may
_as_cend or _de_scend. Beginning at our own point of view--at the Earth
on which we stand--we may pass to the other planets of our system--thence
to the Sun--thence to our system considered collectively--and thence,
through other systems, indefinitely outwards; or, commencing on high at
some point as definite as we can make it or conceive it, we may come
down to the habitation of Man. Usually--that is to say, in ordinary
essays on Astronomy--the first of these two modes is, with certain
reservation, adopted:--this for the obvious reason that astronomical
_facts_, merely, and principles, being the object, that object is best
fulfilled in stepping from the known because proximate, gradually onward
to the point where all certitude becomes lost in the remote. For my
present purpose, however,--that of enabling th