Surely, as we look up at the myriads of stars bespangling the sky, and remember that our star-sun has seven planets moving round it of which one at least--our own earth--is full of living beings, we must picture these glorious suns as the centres of unseen systems, so that those twinkling specks become as suggestive as the faint lights of a great fleet far out at sea, which tell us of mighty ships, together with frigates and gunboats, full of living beings, though we cannot see them, nor even guess what they may be like. How insignificant we feel when we look upon that starlit sky and remember that the whole of our solar system would be but a tiny speck of light if seen as far off as we see the stars! If our little earth and our short life upon it were all we could boast of we should be mites indeed.
But our very study to-night lifts us above these and reminds us that there is a spirit within us which even now can travel beyond the narrow bounds of our globe, measure the vast distances between us and the stars, gauge their brightness, estimate their weight, and discern their movements. As we gaze into the depths of the starlit sky, and travel onwards and onwards in imagination to those distant stars which photography alone reveals to us, do not our hearts leap at the thought of a day which must surely come when, fettered and bound no longer to earth, this spirit shall wander forth and penetrate some of the mystery of those mighty suns at which we now gaze in silent awe.
In our last lecture we soared far away into boundless space, and lost ourselves for a time among seen and unseen suns. In this lecture we will come back not merely to our little world, nor even to one of the widespread oceans which cover so much of it, but to one single pool lying just above the limits of low tide, so that it is only uncovered for a very short time every day. This pool is to be found in a secluded bay within an hour's journey by train from this college, and only a few miles from Torquay. It has no name, so far as I know, nor do many people visit it, otherwise I should not have kept my little pool so long undisturbed. As it is, however, for many years past I have had only to make sure as to the time of low tide, and put myself in the train; and then, unless the sea was very rough and stormy, I could examine the little inhabitants of my miniature ocean in peace.