'91-'-] OF THE GLOBULAR CLUSTERS. 165 



of this most beautiful science of celestial geometry may be consid- 

 ered the ultimate object of the labors of the astronomer. The 

 philosophic observer is not and never can be content with mere ob- 

 servations of details which do not disclose the living, all-pervading 

 spirit of nature. 



17. If, then, the mystery of the gathering of stars into clusters is 

 now penetrated and traced to the clustering power of universal grav- 

 itation, so also is the mystery of the converse problem of starless 

 space, which was a subject of such profound mediation by the great 

 Herschel. 



18. This incomparable astronomer likewise correctly concluded 

 that the breaking up of the Milky Way into a clustering stream is 

 an inevitable effect of the ravages of time ; but we are now enabled 

 to foresee the restorative process, under the repulsive forces of 

 nature, by which new nebulae, clusters and sidereal systems of high 

 order eventually will develop in the present depopulated regions of 

 starless space. 



19. If there be an incessant expulsion of dust from the stars to 

 form the nebulae, with the condensation of the nebulae into stars and 

 stellar systems, while the gathering of stars drawn together by a 

 clustering power operating over millions of ages gives at length a 

 globular mass of thousands of stars accumulating to a perfect blaze 

 of starlight in the center, but surrounded externally by a desert of 

 starless space resulting from the ravages of time, certainly the 

 building of these magnificent sidereal systems may well engage the 

 attention of the natural philosopher. 



20. The foremost geometers of the eighteenth century, including 

 Lagrange, Laplace and Poisson, were greatly occupied with the 

 problem of the stability of the solar system ; and in his historical 

 eulogy on Laplace the penetrating Fourier justly remarks that the 

 researches of geometers prove that the law of gravitation itself 

 operates as a preservative power, and renders all disorder impos- 

 sible, so that no object is more worthy of the meditation of philoso- 

 phers than the problem of the stability of these great celestia' 

 phenomena. 



But if the question of the stability of our single planetary system 



PROC. AMER.?PHIL. SOC, LI. 2O4 H, PRINTED JUNE 7, I9I3. 



