GASEOUS NATUKK OF NEBULA 229 



own day, it has been proved true. The prism has 

 shown that theae inconceivably vast mumt* of gaa 

 a to Herachel reqnirea that his righta 

 to tho first announcement of this new and star 

 view of the gradual formation of worlda should not be 

 oked, aa is sometimes done, 1 "The profound 

 .- discoverer of the gaseous nature of some 

 nebuUe," which I frit on looking for th- tir*t time at 

 that which no eye of man had seen, and which even 

 tho scient i could not foreshow," is tho 



well expressed wonder of true science, when it pene- 

 trates into the workshops of the Aln 

 schel's imagination had done more in 1811 than 

 " foreshow " the discovery made full William 



Huggins in 1864. The imagin William Herachel 



penetrated into this secret house of wonders, and gave 

 expression to what was believed to be going on in 

 eternal ages and through infinite space. 



Th-iv an- tw.i in.i-nitir.-nt n. -hnl:.- to which aMn> 



ive specially turned their telescopes, the < 



Orion ami the oth. r in An-lromeda. _: in 1811, 



thirty-seven years' study of these wonderfully 



myst rsch.-l thus speaks of "the great 



i in tho constellation of Orion discovered by 



Hnyghena This highly interesting object engaged 



lliam Herschel supposed that they [nebulas] were all really 

 Ur.cluttr*, but so enormously remote that even the moat powerful 

 telescopes oonld not render visible the stars composing them" 

 (Wallace, Tk* W*nf*l Ctefciry, p. 44). This is a singular stitssMt 

 to come from the gifted author or co-author of the Darwinian theory. 

 The redaction of the immensely vast to the comparatively small WM 

 Herschel's view of development or evolution in the realms of space ; the 

 growth of organic life from the simple cell to the living forms of earth 

 the inverse process U the idea or hypothesis of natural science 

 to-day. See PkU. 7Va,u., 1791, pp. 73-**. 



