Cosmos

As the history of nations -- if it were always able to trace events to their true causes -- might solve the ever-recurring enigma of the oscillations experienced by the alternately progressive and retrograde movement of human society, so might also the physical description of the world, the science of the 'Cosmos', if it were grasped by a powerful intellect, and based upon a knowledge of all the results of discovery up to a given period, succeed in dispelling a portion of the contradictions which, at first sight, appear to arise from the complication or phenomena and the multitude of the perturbations simultaneously manifested.