COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 47tf
the gradual development of the science of the Cosmos are,
into the
therefore, of very different kinds; viz., investigations
structure of languages; the deciphering of ancient inscriptions
and historical monuments in hieroglyphics and arrow-
headed writing; the greater perfection of mathematics,,
especially of that powerful analytic calculus by which the
form of the earth, the ebb and flow of the sea, and the regions
of space are brought within the compass of calculation. To>
these aids must be further added the material inventions
which have procured for us, as it were, new organs, sharpened
the power of our senses, and enabled men to enter into a
closer communication with terrestrial forces, and even with the
remote regions of space. In order to enumerate only a few
of the instruments, whose invention characterises great epochs
in the history of civilisation, I would name the telescope,,
and its too long delayed connection with instruments of measurement
; the compound microscope, which furnishes us with the
means of tracing the conditions of the process of development
of organisms, which Aristotle gracefully designates as "the formative
activity the source of being;" the compass, and the different
contrivances invented for measuring terrestrial magnetism
the use of the pendulum as a measure of time ; the barometer *
r
the thermometer ; hygrometric and electrometric apparatuses ;
and the polariscope, in its application to the phenomena of
coloured polarisation, in the light of the stars, or in luminous
regions of the atmosphere.
The history of the physical contemplation of the universe,,
which is based, as we nave already remarked, on a meditative-
consideration of natural phenomena, on the connection of great
events, and on inventions which enlarge the domain of sensuous
perception, can only be presented in a fragmentary and
superficial manner, and only in its leading features. I flatter
myself with the hope that the brevity of this mode of treatment
will enable the reader the more readily to apprehend the
spirit in which a picture should be sketched, whose limits it is
so difficult to define. Here, as in the picture of nature which
is given in the former part of this work, it will be my object
to treat the subject not with the completeness of an individual-
ising enumeration, but merely by the development of leading
ideas, that indicate some of the paths which must be pursued
by the physicist in his historical investigations. The know-