A. 



RESULTS OF OBSERVATIONS IN THE URANOLOGICAL POR- 

 TION OF THE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD. 



We again commence with the depths of cosmical spacb, 

 and the remote sporadic starry systems, which appear to tel- 

 escopic vision as faintly shining nebula;. From these we 

 gradually descend to the double stars, revolving round one 

 common center of gravity, and which are frequently bicol- 

 ored, to the nearer starry strata, one of which appears to in- 

 close our own planetary system ; passing thence to the air- 

 and-ocean-girt terrestrial spheroid which we inhabit. We 

 have already indicated, in the introduction to the General 

 Delineation of Nature,* that this arrangement of ideas is 

 alone suited to the character of a work on the Cosmos, since 

 we can not here, in accordance with the requirements of di- 

 rect sensuous contemplation, begin with our own terrestrial 

 abode, whose surface is animated by organic forces, and pass 

 from the apparent to the true movements of cosmical bodies. 



The uranological, when opposed to the telluric domain 

 of the Cosmos, may be conveniently separated into two di- 

 visions, one of which comprises astrognosy, or the region of 

 the fixed stars, and the other our solar and planetary sys- 

 tem. It is unnecessary here to describe the imperfect and 

 unsatisfactory nature of such a nomenclature and such class- 

 ifications. Names were introduced into the physical sci- 

 ences before the differences of objects and their strict limita- 

 tions were sufficiently known. f The most important point, 

 however, is the connection of ideas, and the order in which 

 the objects are to be considered. Innovations in the no- 

 menclature of groups, and a deviation 'from the meanings 

 hitherto attached to well-known names, only tend to dis- 

 tract and confuse the mind. 



a. ASTROGNOSY. (The Domain of the Fixed Stars.) 

 Nothing is stationary in space. Even the fixed stars 

 move, as Halleyt endeavored to show in reference to Sirius, 



* Cosmos, vol. i., p. 79-83. f Op. cit., p. 56, 57 



X Halley, in the Philos. Transact, for 1717, vol. xxx., p. 736. 



