Conjlrudlion of the Heavens > 219 



common telefcope, he begins to fufpeft that all the milkuiefs 

 of the bright path which furrounds the fphere may be owing 

 to ftars. He perceives a few cluflers of them in various parts 

 of the heavens, and finds alfo that there are a kind of nebu- 

 lous patches ; but ftill his views are not extended fo far as to 

 reach to the end of the ftratum in which he is fituated, fo that 

 he looks upon thefe patches as belonging to that fyflem which 

 to him feems to comprehend every celeftial objed:. He now 

 increafes his power of vifion, and, applying himfelf to a clofe 

 obfervation, finds that the milky way is indeed no other than a 

 collection of very fmall ftars. He perceives that thofe objects 

 which had been called nebulae are evidently nothing but cluflers 

 of ftars. He finds their number increafe upon him-, and when 

 he refolves one nebula into ftars he difcovers ten new ones 

 which he cannot refolve, He then forms the idea of immenfe 

 flrata of fixed ftars, of cluftersof ftars and of nebulas {a) ; till, 

 going on with fuch interefting obfervation s, he now perceives 

 that all thefe appearances muft naturally arife from the con- 

 fined fituation in which we are placed. Confined it may juitly 

 be called, though in no lefs a fpace than what before appeared 

 to be the whole region of the fixed ftars ; but which now has 

 affumed the ihape of a crookedly branching nebula ; not, in- 

 deed, one of the leafl, but perhaps very far from' being the 

 mofl confiderable of thofe numberlefs clufters that enter into 

 the conftrudtion of the heavens. 



Refuit of ObfervationSi 



1 (hall now endeavour to fhew, that the theoretical view of 

 the fyftem of the univerfe, which has been expofed in the 

 {a) See a former paper on the Conftruftion of the Heavens. 



F f 2 fore- 



