ASTROXOMICAL HISTORY. 1G1 



be derived from the contemplation of the heavenly bodies : 

 both of these as showing the design of the history : that 

 those whose task it shall be to compile a history of the 

 heavenly bodies may know what they do, and may have 

 these questions, along with the works and practical effects 

 to arise from them, in their minds eye and contemplation. 

 Whence they may build up and prepare a history such 

 as shall be adapted for the decision of questions of this 

 sort, and for furnishing such fruits and advantages to man 

 kind. We mean questions of that kind which are appli 

 cable to the doings of nature, not their causes. For that 

 is the proper province of history. We shall then perspi 

 cuously state in what the history of the heavenly bodies 

 consists ; what are its parts ; what things are to be learned 

 or examined ; what experiments are to be set on foot and 

 performed ; what observations are to be used and weighed ; 

 thus proposing, so to speak, certain inductive topics or 

 articles of examination respecting the heavenly bodies. 

 Lastly, we shall state something not only concerning what 

 ought properly to be inquired into, but concerning this, 

 how, when the inquiries are completed, they ought to be 

 meditated, and exhibited, and reduced to writing ; lest the 

 diligence employed in the first part of the inquiry should 

 be lost in what succeeds ; or, which is worse, lest the ad 

 vances subsequently made should proceed upon feeble and 

 fallacious foundations. Finally, we shall state both with 

 what object, and what, and how, inquiry ought to be made 

 respecting the heavenly bodies. 



CHAP. VI. 



That Philosophical Questions about the Heavenly Bodies, 

 even though they go beyond the common ideas, and be 

 somewhat difficult, ought to be canvassed. A nd there are 

 proposed Jive questions about the System itself : whether it 

 be a System ? and, supposing it to be so, what is its Centre, 

 what is its Depth, what is its Connection, and what its 

 Distribution of Parts ? 



AND now, doubtless, we shall be considered by some as 

 disinterring the ashes of old questions, long, as it were, 

 consigned to the dust of the grave ; nay, as evoking their 

 very ghosts, and urging them with fresh interrogatories of 

 our own. But since the philosophy, hitherto in vogue, 

 VOL. xv. M 



