420 HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 



CHAPTER III. 



SEQUEL TO THE EPOCH OF NEWTON*. RECEPTION OF THE 



N THEORY. 



Sect. 1. General Remarks. 



THE doctrine of universal gravitation, like other great steps in sci- 

 ence, required a certain time to make its way into men's minds ; 

 and had to be confirmed, illustrated, and completed, by the labors of 

 succeeding philosophers. As the discovery itself was great beyond 

 former example, the features of the natural sequel to the discovery 

 were also on a gigantic scale ; and many vast and laborious trains of 

 research, eacli of which might, in itself, be considered as forming a 

 wide science, and several of which have occupied many profound and 

 zealous inquirers from that time to our own day, come before us as parts 

 only of the verification of Newton's Theory. Almost every thing that 

 has been done, and is doing, in astronomy, falls inevitably under this 

 description ; and it is only when the astronomer travels to the very 

 limits of his vast field of labor, that he falls in with phenomena which 

 do not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Newtonian legislation. We 

 must give some account of the events of this part of the history of 

 astronomy ; but our narrative must necessarily be extremely brief and 

 imperfect ; for the subject is most large and copious, and our limits are 

 fixed and narrow. We have here to do with the history of discover- 

 ies, only so far as it illustrates their philosophy. And though the 



place at a later period. Flauisteed wished to have his Observations printed com- 

 plete and entire. Halley, who, under the authority of Newton and others, had the 

 management of the printing, made many alterations and omissions, which Flam- 

 steed considered as deforming and spoiling the work. The advantages of publish- 

 ing a complete series of observations, now generally understood, were not then 

 known to astronomers in general, though well known to Flamsteed, and earnestly 

 insisted upon in his remonstrances. The result was that Flamsteed published his 

 Observations at his own expense, and finally obtained permission to destroy the 

 copies printed by Halley, which he did. In 1726, after Flamsteed's death, his 

 widow applied to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, requesting that the volume print- 

 ed by Halley might be removed out of the Bodieian Library, where it exists, ns be- 

 ing "nothing more than an erroneous abridgment of Mr. Flamsteed's works," and 

 unfit to see the light. 



