COMETS. M 395 



filiation, which seems to place them in the alle- 

 gorical view of tools, probably designed for 

 some salutary purposes to be wrought by them; 

 and whether the restoration of what is lost to 

 the sun, by the emission of light, the possibi- 

 lity of which we have been mentioning above, 

 may not be one of the purposes, I shall not pre- 

 sume to determine." 



I respect Dr. Herschell too much to accuse 

 him of plagiarism. It is, however, a little ex- 

 traordinary, that this paper should have been 

 presented to the Royal Society, a few months 

 only, after my book was published : and that in 

 this paper the Doctor ascribed to lightning, me- 

 teors and cornets, the very use which I had done 

 before : that I should assert the necessity of their 

 existence; and that the Doctor should after- 

 wards declare, that he saw them, that they were 

 composed of the same kind of matter as I had 

 asserted, and that they were designed for the 

 same use. Without wishing even to suspect 

 that Dr. Herschell had seen my book, I think 

 it just to say, that the truth of my hypothesis 

 is strengthened by Dr. Herschell's opinion, 

 and confirmed by his discoveries. 



Reasoning, as I did, from universals, it be- 

 came a matter of necessity for me to inquire 

 how far the particular facts, justified the uni- 

 versal conclusion. I, therefore, consulted the 

 various histories which have been given by dif- 



