perceived. But these impenetrable heavens, this solid roof which they believed rested upon our earth, in proportion as curiosity observed them, and as the sentiment of the sublime and beautiful elevated mankind, became separated into several portions like children's playthings: the infinity of space; the infinity of worlds; the infinity of suns correspond to the infinity of power. Let us look nearer to ourselves; in this milky way, where our sun, with all the planets which it vivifies and attracts, occupies only an imperceptible point; what a multitude of wonders, unknown to by-gone ages! At one point are perceived double stars; at another, two suns of enormous dimensions, forming by themselves an entire system; they suffice to each other, supplying each other with light, the one revolving around the other. Among these suns there are some which require forty years, others six thousand years, to perform the double circle of their immense revolution. Farther off in another heaven, the heaven of Sideral astronomy,* *modern science discovers luminous masses of infinitely-varied shapes; round, oval, square, triangular, spear-shaped, fan-shaped, resembling a tree, a mountain, or unfolding themselves like the circles of an immense snake, or, lastly, transparent; allowing us to perceive at an immense depth, other whitish masses which float in other spaces; and these masses so varied in their forms, are composed of an aggregation of worlds and of suns. Ah! that was a sublime hour when the great Herschel, and the son who pursues his glorious career, met for the first time in the realms of space, with these oceans of stars which have been termed nebulous, on account of the dusky lights which they radiate. Two feeble creatures, while yet enveloped with their earthly covering, had

*This name is given to the science which takes cognizance of the cclestial bodies placed out of the limits of the solar system.

sprung upwards into infinity, and it was permitted them to contemplate that which no mortal had hitherto contemplated. More fortunate than Newton, that great explorer of the heavens, they had overleaped the limits of the visible creation, and suddenly found themselves emerging from darkness, amidst myriads of suns, animated with myriads of movements, which arose like a living wall before them.

This was the extent of the vision of the learned men; this is the limit of our knowledge, but not the limits of creation.

Mount, mount still higher, and the nearer you approach to that which is most sublime and beautiful, so much the nearer will you approach to truth. Truth is richer than imagination; she overlaps it on all sides.

You have just seen the constellations multiplied like the sands of the sea; mount, mount yet higher. Plunge with Herschel into this abyss of light and fire. The great man aspires to that which is most grand; his soul foreknows that all these stars which radiate in space must have their animated and intelligent beings. What is to him a sun which would do no more than impart light? God has everywhere given himself spectators. Full of this thought, he observes the constellation whose presence constitutes our day, and he soon discovers that it is an opaque planet, somewhat resembling the earth, and not a burning fire; that light does not emanate from its interior, but that it floats in its atmosphere as the clouds float in ours; that it is there perpetually formed to radiate upon worlds, and doubtless likewise upon the sun itself, to which it gives light; which it fertilizes, and which it would have consumed a hundred times over, if, by means which are unknown to us, the devouring heat of its fire were not constantly tempered. And he infers from this, that "the

phenomenon of life is produced in the sun, as on the earth, but under different forms and conditions ;' ."* thus surpassing the profound conceptions of Huygens, who, while peopling the stars, had not dared to people the sun;† the younger Herschel raises himself a degree higher towards the sublime; he feels that intelligence is everywhere, because he recognizes everywhere a God. Hence, all the luminous points of the firmament are animated by prayer and by love; each planet, each star, each sun, each milky way is an altar which burns, and whence arises the hymn of praise; and the totality of these planets, of these stars and suns, is the temple of the divinity; and these sublime choruses which resound from world to world, form the worship of an endless creation, an eternal, incomprehensible worship heard by God alone, amidst the harmony of the spheres, throughout space, time, and eternity.

CHAPTER XXIII.

OF THE PERFECTIBILITY

OF THE HUMAN RACE-A

MORAL LAW OF NATURE.

"Oh la belle, la noble destinée d'avancer toujours vers la perfection, sans rencontrer jamais le terme de ses progres."

ANCILLON. De la Destination de l'Homme.

WITHIN the depths of our soul there reposes a sentiment of which moralists have scarcely had a glimpse, and which, nevertheless, exercises great power over the human

* Philosophical Transactions, 1828.

+ Nouveau Traité de la Pluralité des Mondes. Translated from the Latin, 1718.

race, viz. that man, whatever may be in other respects his ignorance or his enlightenment, will only recognise in reason and in justice, the right of ruling over him. It results from this, that nations obey the hardest laws, the most extravagant superstitions, only because they believe them to be just and reasonable. Under this sentiment, which is so simple, the greatest events in history come to arrange themselves.

This sentiment is sublime, for it testifies, (and this in opposition to the calumnies of sophists respecting our love for falsehood,) it evidences, I say, that we attach ourselves to error, only in as far as it is presented to us in the garb of truth. Carry your ideas back to the middle ages, see the people bowed down before the nobles, and the nobility kings and people bowed down before the priesthood. Wherefore this double abjection? It is because the superiority of noble races was a conviction of the people, as the holiness of the priests was a conviction of the nobles and of kings. But let one of these two powers, that which influences the people, for instance, understand its error, immediately its chains fall, and, stripping itself of a belief which retained it in slavery, it hastens to seek that justice in which alone it recognises the right of commanding. Certainly, I had great reason to call sublime, a sentiment which maintains the dignity of man even beneath the rod of despotism, and which renders him free upon the first glimmerings of truth.

In this universal sentiment we recognise a law of nature, a law against which all the superstitions and tyrannical legislations of the world come one by one to destroy themselves.

This law likewise connects itself in a surprising manner with two other laws, which concur to the same end. Thus, man loves truth, and aspires to it: the first law of nature.

But in the search after it he requires a guide, and this guide he carries within him.

Man inclines always to that which is most great and beautiful: the second law of nature.

Lastly, these two laws may be considered as the source of a third; viz. the law of perfectibility, which affects all people by the same impulse, though not with the same degree of movement, (some being more forward, others more backward,) towards the fulfilment of all the laws of nature.

This law was only discovered towards the end of the last century;-Condorcet, from his dungeon, hastened to cast. it out to the world. The thought was great, but he merely had a glimpse of it, leaving to the following age the glory of making the providential application of it to the development of morality and humanity upon the earth.

Such is the object of the law; or, to speak plainer, such is the great work imposed upon the human race. What will be the end of this work? I know not. All that it is possible for us to have a glimpse of, is, that there is a mission given, a road more or less long to be travelled over, and that the moral world, though revolving in darkness, is continually approaching nearer to the light.

Those who have combated this law have imagined that it proclaimed the progressive increase of human intellect. Full of this idea, they ask what poet can we compare to Homer, what philosopher to Socrates, what warrior to Epaminondas? they then rejoice at their triumph, even before having understood the question. In fact, perfectibility is not the power of changing the nature of man: it is simply the expression of the movement of the masses and of the progress of humanity. Considering all the people on the earth as a single man, it inquires whether this being be ameliorated since the beginning of the world: it asks him what he was at the time of Sesostris, and what he is