Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/219

 ideal grasp of whatever is, or might be seen in creation. The peculiar circumstance, bearing upon the culture of the conceptive faculty, which attaches to the objects of astronomy is this, namelyThat the heavenly bodies, or let us now confine ourselves to the planets of our own system, are at once, and in different senses, within the range of the eye, and beyond it. A remote country is purely an object of conception; and whether it be Jersey, or Otaheite, it can be present to the mind only in idea. But the moon, or Jupiter and his moons, with the aid of the telescope, is so brought before the eye, as that the mind keeps a fixed hold of it, while it is spoken of; and yet, as to the scenes which may diversify its surface, it is so remote as to demand the most vigorous effort of the conceptive faculty to realize them. Now this circumstance is of the highest significance in relation to the process of culture we are at present treating of.

With the advantage of a clear atmosphere, let the eye be fixed upon a hill side, fifteen or twenty miles distant, and with which, and its objects, the spectator has already become familiarly acquainted, and able therefore to fill up, in all their details, the hazy outlines, and to fancy much more than he can discern of houses, churches, knolls, hedges, and rocky points. Now, in thus bringing the conceptive power to bear upon a cluster of objects, dimly seen it receives a partial aid, which, in a singular manner, enhances the faculty itself, and uses it to a degree of precision and vividness that confers something like ubiquity upon the mind, enabling it to transport itself, with the velocity of light, to any scene which it possesses the materials for imagining. After practising the eye, and the mind, in this conjoined manner, upon a remote object, known by previous and near acquaintance, the next exercise is to direct the eye to a similarly situated eminence which has never been actually visited. This is a different