point of view, and reflect on the extreme feebleness of the natural
means by the help of which so many great problems have been attacked and
solved; if we consider that to obtain and measure the greater part of
the quantities now forming the basis of astronomical computation, man
has had greatly to improve the most delicate of his organs, to add
immensely to the power of his eye; if we remark that it was not less
requisite for him to discover methods adapted to measuring very long
intervals of time, up to the precision of tenths of seconds; to combat
against the most microscopic effects that constant variations of
temperature produce in metals, and therefore in all instruments; to
guard against the innumerable illusions that a cold or hot atmosphere,
dry or humid, tranquil or agitated, impresses on the medium through
which the observations have inevitably to be made; the feeble being
resumes all his advantage; by the side of such wonderful labours of the
mind, what signifies the weakness, the fragility of our body; what
signify the dimensions of the planet, our residence, the grain of sand
on which it has happened to us to appear for a few moments!

The thousands of questions on which Astronomy has thrown its dazzling
light belong to two entirely distinct categories; some offered
themselves naturally to the mind, and man had only to seek the means for
solving them; others, according to the beautiful expression of Pliny,
were enveloped in the majesty of nature! When Bailly lays down in his
book these two kinds of problems, it is with the firmness, the depth, of
a consummate astronomer; and when he shows their importance, their
immensity, it is always with the talent of a writer of the highest
order; it is sometimes with a bewitching eloquence. If in the beautiful
work we are alluding to, Astronomy unavoidably assigns to man an
imperceptible place in the material world, she assigns him, on the other
hand, a vast share in the intellectual world. The writings which,