Indeed, all that we call science, as well as all that we call
poetry, is a particle of such information, accurate as far as it
goes, though it be but to the confines of the truth. If we can
reason so accurately, and with such wonderful confirmation of our
reasoning, respecting so-called material objects and events
infinitely removed beyond the range of our natural vision, so
that the mind hesitates to trust its calculations even when they
are confirmed by observation, why may not our speculations
penetrate as far into the immaterial starry system, of which the
former is but the outward and visible type? Surely, we are
provided with senses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of
the real, the substantial, the eternal, as these outward are to
penetrate the material universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster,
Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg,--these are some of our
astronomers.
There are perturbations in our orbits produced by the influence
of outlying spheres, and no astronomer has ever yet calculated
the elements of that undiscovered world which produces them.
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