COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

742 COSMOS.
If art may be said to dwell within the magic circle of the
imagination, the extension of knowledge, on the other hand,
especially depends on contact with the external world, and
this becomes more manifold and close in proportion with the
increase of general intercourse. The creation of new organs
(instruments of observation) increases the intellectual and
not unfrequently the physical powers of man. More rapid
than light the closed electric current conveys thought and
will to the remotest distance. Forces, whose silent operation
in elementary nature, and in the delicate cells of organic
tissues, still escape our senses, will, when recognised,
employed, and awakened to higher activity,
at some future
time enter within the sphere of the endless chain of means
which enable man to subject to his control separate domains
of nature, and to approximate to a more animated recognition
of the Universe as a Whole.
s. 152, th. ii. s. 76; Kunth, Lehrbuch der otatfc,th.i. 1847,8. 91-100,
and 505.