COURSE OF LECTURES 



OI7 



NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 



AND THE 



MECHANICAL APiTS. 



LECTURE XLI. 



ON THE FIXED STARS. 



The departments of natural philosophy, which are to be the subjects of 

 the third and last division of these lectures, are included in the description 

 implied by the term physics, or the history of the particular phenomena of 

 nature; and the account, which will be given of these phenomena, will be 

 accompanied by as much of mechanical theory and analogical reasoning, as 

 can be applied to them with sufficient certainty, and without too great in- 

 tricacy of calculation. 



The science of astronomy might, without any great impropriety, have been, 

 considered as a part of mechanics; but. there are circumstances intimately 

 connected with it, for the complete investigation of which, a knowledge of 

 the motions of fluids in general, and also of optics, is absolutely necessary. 

 It could not, therefore, hold any other place in a strict order of arrangement, 

 than that which is here allotted to it; and, since it will not be in our power 



