“The proper study of mankind, is Man:”—
But, in order that he may be enabled to know himself, it is
indispensably necessary for him to acquire such a knowledge of other
created beings that surround him, as the limited nature of his faculties
will allow. He must attentively observe the operations of nature in the
material universe, survey with a reflecting mind its stupendous fabric,
and study its laws. Hence, he will be made acquainted, and although in a
partial, yet not an inconsiderable degree, with the powers and extent of
that intellectual principle which he finds in the government of the
moral, as well as the natural world. And being thus enabled to know his
own proper standing in creation, and his appropriate relation to all its
parts, he will by these means be qualified to ascend to those enquiries,
which will open to his mind a just sense of the attributes of the Deity,
of whose existence he will feel a perfect conviction. In this way, will
man obtain a due knowledge of his own “being, end and aim;” and become
fully sensible of his entire dependence on his Creator: while he will
thereby learn, that he incessantly owes him the highest adoration and
the most devoted service.[35] In this way it is, that the philosopher,
more especially the astronomer,—
“Looks, through Nature, up to Nature’s God.”[36]
_Pope’s Ess. on Man._
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Footnote 35:
Man will, unquestionably, by taking an extensive range in the
contemplation of nature, proportionably enlarge his intuitive
conceptions of the attributes of her Almighty First Cause; of whose
transcendently exalted existence, the study of his own being, one of
nature’s greatest works, will have taught him the reality: and a due
knowledge of himself, alone, will also instruct him in the dependent
nature of his condition, and the duties resulting from that state of
dependence, in his humble relation to the Supreme being.
Mr. Smart, in the poem before quoted, has prettily expressed this
idea, in the following lines:—
“Vain were th’ attempt, and impious, to trace
Thro’ _all_ his works th’ Artificer Divine—
And tho’ no shining sun, nor twinkling star,
Bedeck’d the crimson curtains of the sky;
Tho’ neither vegetable, beast, nor bird,
Were extant on the surface of this ball,
Nor lurking gem beneath; tho’ the great sea
Slept in profound stagnation, and the air
Had left no thunder to pronounce its Maker;
Yet Man at home, _within himself_, might find
The Deity immense; and, in that frame
So fearfully, so wonderfully made,
See and adore his Providence and Pow’r.”
Footnote 36:
The same sentiment is beautifully expressed by Thomson, in the
following apostrophe:
“With thee, serene Philosophy! with thee,
And thy bright garland, let me crown my song!
Effusive source of evidence, and truth!
A lustre shedding o’er th’ ennobled mind,
Stronger than summer-noon; and pure as that,
Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul,
New to the dawning of celestial day.
Hence through her nourish’d pow’rs, enlarged by thee,
She springs aloft, with elevated pride,
Above the tangling mass of low desires,
That bind the fluttering crowd; and angel-wing’d,
The heights of science and of virtue gains,
Where all is calm and clear; with nature round,
Or in the starry regions, or th’ abyss,
To reason’s or to fancy’s eye display’d:
The _First_ up-tracing, from the dreary void,
The chain of causes and effects to Him,
The world producing essence, who alone
Possesses being; while the _Last_ receives
The whole magnificence of heaven and earth,
And every beauty, delicate or bold,
Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.”
_Summer_, l. 1729 and seq.
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Besides the various and important uses of astronomy, here pointed out,
it is connected, by means of numerous ramifications, with other
departments of science, directed to some of the most useful pursuits of
human life. Lalande has even shewn us, in the preface to his
_Astronomie_, in what manner this science has a relation to the
administration of civil and ecclesiastical affairs, to medicine, and to
agriculture. A knowledge of astronomy is obviously connected, by means
of chronology, with history. It is even a necessary study, in order to
become acquainted with the heathen mythology; and many beautiful
passages in the works of the ancient poets can neither be distinctly
understood nor properly relished, without a knowledge of the stars: nay,
that finely poetical one, in the book of Job, in which the Deity is
represented as manifesting to that patient man of affliction and sorrow
the extreme imbecility of his nature, is unintelligible without some
knowledge of astronomy:—
“Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of
Orion?—
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season; or canst thou guide
Arcturus, with his sons?”
Some of the greatest poets of antiquity were in a manner fascinated, by
the grandeur of that science, (though they accompanied it with mystical
notions,) which furnishes the sublimest objects in nature to the
contemplation of the astronomer.
Ovid tells us, he wished to take his flight among the stars:
—-—-—“Juvat ire per alta
Astra; juvat, terris et inerti sede relictis,
Nube vehi, validique humeris insistere Atlantis.”[37]
_Metamorph._ lib. xv.
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Footnote 37:
It delights me to soar among the lofty stars; it delights me to leave
the earth and this dull habitation, to be wafted upon a cloud, and to
stand upon the shoulders of the mighty Atlas.