It is almost with reluctance that I am about to speak of a sentiment, which
appears to arise from narrow-minded views, or from a certain weak and morbid
sentimentality -- I allude to the 'fear' entertained by some persons, that
nature may by degrees lose a portion of the charm and magic of her power,
p 39
as we learn more and more how to unvail her secrets, comprehend the
mechanism of the movements of the heavenly bodies, and estimate numerically
the intensity of natural forces. It is true that, properly speaking, the
forces of nature can only exercise a magical power over us as long as their
action is shrouded in mystery and darkness, and does not admit of being
classed among the conditions with which experience has made us acquainted.
The effect of such a power is, therefore, to excite the imagination, but
that, assuredly, is not the faculty of mind we would evoke to preside over
the laborious and elaborate observations by which we strive to attain to a
knowledge of the greatness and excellence of the laws of the universe.
The astronomer who, by the aid of the heliometer or a double-refracting
prism,* determines the diameter of planetary bodies; who measures patiently
year after year, the meridian altitude and the relative distances of stars,
or who seeks a telescopic comet in a group of nebulae, does not feel his
imagination more excited -- and this is the very guarantee of the precision
of his labors -- than the botanist who counts the divisions of the calyx, or
the number of stamens in a flower, or examines the connected or the separate
teeth of the peristoma surrounding the capsule of a moss.
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