But for all the kindreds and tribes and tongues of men—­each upon their own meridian—­from the Arctic pole to the equator, from the equator to the Antarctic pole, the eternal sun strikes twelve at noon, and the glorious constellations, far up in the everlasting belfries of the skies, chime twelve at midnight;—­twelve for the pale student over his flickering lamp; twelve amid the flaming glories of Orion’s belt, if he crosses the meridian at that fated hour; twelve by the weary couch of languishing humanity; twelve in the star-paved courts of the Empyrean; twelve for the heaving tides of the ocean; twelve for the weary arm of labor; twelve for the toiling brain; twelve for the watching, waking, broken heart; twelve for the meteor which blazes for a moment and expires; twelve for the comet whose period is measured by centuries; twelve for every substantial, for every imaginary thing, which exists in the sense, the intellect, or the fancy, and which the speech or thought of man, at the given meridian, refers to the lapse of time.

Not only do we resort to the observation of the heavenly bodies for the means of regulating and rectifying our clocks, but the great divisions of day and month and year are derived from the same source.  By the constitution of our nature, the elements of our existence are closely connected with celestial times.  Partly by his physical organization, partly by the experience of the race from the dawn of creation, man as he is, and the times and seasons of the heavenly bodies, are part and parcel of one system.  The first great division of time, the day-night (nychthemerum), for which we have no precise synonym in our language, with its primal alternation of waking and sleeping, of labor and rest, is a vital condition of the existence of such a creature as man.  The revolution of the year, with its various incidents of summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest, is not less involved in our social, material, and moral progress.  It is true that at the poles, and on the equator, the effects of these revolutions are variously modified or wholly disappear; but as the necessary consequence, human life is extinguished at the poles, and on the equator attains only a languid or feverish development.  Those latitudes only in which the great motions and cardinal positions of the earth exert a mean influence, exhibit man in the harmonious expansion of his powers.  The lunar period, which lies at the foundation of the month, is less vitally connected with human existence and development; but is proved by the experience of every age and race to be eminently conducive to the progress of civilization and culture.