SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM HERSCHEL. 135 



Even if this blemish exists, it is but as a spot upon tbe sun. It argues 

 no more tban that in one particular the son was second to the father. 

 But without more satisfactory evidence we prefer to range ourselves 

 among the doubters, and to be among the number of those who believe 

 that Sir John Herschel's reasoning was never in a single instance marred 

 by a forgotten fact. 



In the contemplation of the work of the two Herschels, let us remark 

 in conclusion, and what that work has revealed to us, the mind stands 

 ap])alled. Reason shrinks before the specter of boundless creation. 

 If our sun and all his planets, primary and secondary, are in rapid 

 motion round an invisible focus — if from that mysterious center no ray 

 of light has ever reached our globe, then the buried relics of primeval 

 life have taught us less of man's brief tenure on this terrestrial paradise 

 than we learn from the lesson of the stars. The one may date back 

 unnumbered centuries, the other declares that from the origin of the 

 human race to its far distant future the system to which it belongs will 

 have described but an infinitesimal arc of an immeasurable circle in 

 which it is destiued to revolve. 



He married ^largaret Brodie, daughter of Dr. Stewart, in 1829; she 

 and a numerous familj' survive him. Two of his sons are already very 

 favorably known in the realm of science, and their father lived to see 

 one of them selected by the council for election to the Eoyal Society. 

 Another son has an important professorship in the north of England. 

 The eldest son, the present Sir William Herschel, occupies, with dis- 

 tinguished merit, a very important post in the civil service of Bengal. 



Herschel's whole life, like the lives of i^ewton and Faraday, confutes 

 the assertion, and ought to remove the suspicion, that a profound study 

 of nature is unfavorable to a sincere acceptance of the Christian faith. 

 Surrounded by an affectionate family, of which he was long spared to 

 be the pride, the guide, and the life. John Herschel died, as he had lived, 

 in the unostentatious exercise of a devout, yet simple, taith. 



