THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY AND SCIENCE. 167 



and all this within a few trifles of the truth, and before he had seen it 

 with any other than his mental eyes. 



Since the time of Newton, the astronomer has rather speculated on 

 the ever-shifting perturbations, than on the nominal ellipses of the 

 planets. Their existence, too, is interdependent : destroy one, and all 

 the others would suffer in proportion. Each planet may be said to be 

 determined by, or to be the result of, the concurrence of the habitudes 

 of all the others. Moreover, there are, we are told, opaque orbs, large 

 as those which are visible, that revolve with Sirius and Procyon 

 around some common centre. The objects revealed by light constitute 

 but one class among many ; such is the profusion of creative magnifi- 

 cence, bewildering the imagination which it transcends. The irregular 

 action of undiscovered orbs leads to the suspicion of their existence. 

 Such was the case with Uranus, discovered by Herschel, whose ap- 

 pearances, however, became the puzzle of science until accounted for 

 by physical astronomy. There was acknowledged a "formal incom- 

 patibility between the observed motions of Uraiius and the hypothesis 

 that he was acted on only by the sun and known planets, according 

 to the laws of universal gravitation." It was not until the 31st of 

 August, 1846, that the question was determined by a paper read by 

 Leverrier to the French institute : — 



"How singular," says Dr. Nicol, "that scene in the Academy! A 

 young man, not yet at life's prime, speaking unfalteringly of the 

 necessities of the most august forms of creation — passing onwards 

 where eye never was, and placing his finger on the precise point of 

 space in which a grand orb lay concealed ; having been led to its 

 lurking-place by his appreciation of those vast harmonies which stamp 

 the Universe with a consummate perfection ! Never was there accom- 

 plished a nobler work, and never work more nobly done ! It is the 

 eminent characteristic of those labours of Leverrier, that at no mo- 

 ment did his faith ever waver : the majesty of the enterprise was 

 equalled by the resolution and confidence of the man. He trod those 

 dark spaces as Columbus bore himself amid the ocean waste ; even 

 when there was no speck or shadow of aught substantial around the 

 wide horiz;on — holding his conviction in those grand verities which 

 are not the less real because above sense, and pushing onwards to- 

 wards his New "World! " 



But still the actual discovery of the wanting planet remained to be 

 accomplished. Dr. Breniker's map of the region in which the new 



