He can do this with the greatest pleasure and profit in
late summer or autumn--winter would do equally well were it
possible for the mind to rise so far above bodily conditions that
the question of temperature should not enter. The thinking man who
does this under circumstances most favorable for calm thought will
form a new conception of the wonder of the universe. If summer or
autumn be chosen, the stupendous arch of the Milky Way will pass
near the zenith, and the constellation Lyra, led by its beautiful
blue Vega of the first magnitude, may be not very far from that
point. South of it will be seen the constellation Aquila, marked
by the bright Altair, between two smaller but conspicuous stars.
The bright Arcturus will be somewhere in the west, and, if the
observation is not made too early in the season, Aldebaran will be
seen somewhere in the east. When attention is concentrated on the
scene the thousands of stars on each side of the Milky Way will
fill the mind with the consciousness of a stupendous and all-
embracing frame, beside which all human affairs sink into
insignificance. A new idea will be formed of such a well-known
fact of astronomy as the motion of the solar system in space, by
reflecting that, during all human history, the sun, carrying the
earth with it, has been flying towards a region in or just south
of the constellation Lyra, with a speed beyond all that art can
produce on earth, without producing any change apparent to
ordinary vision in the aspect of the constellation.
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