242 THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 



not of a starry nature ; " and on this conclusion was based 

 his hypothesis of a diffused luminous fluid, which by its 

 eventual aggregation, produced stars. A telescopic pow- 

 er much exceeding that used by Herschel, has enabled 

 Lord Rosse to resolve some of the nebulae previously un- 

 resolved ; and, returning to the conclusion which Ilerschel 

 first formed on similar grounds but afterwards rejected, 

 ■jiany astronomers have assumed that, under sufliciently 

 high powers, every nebula would be decomposed into stars 

 — that the resolvability is solely a question of distance. The 

 hypothesis now commonly entertained is, that all nebula3 

 are galaxies more or less like in nature to that immediately 

 surrounding us ; but that they are so inconceivably re- 

 mote, as to look, through an ordinary telescope, like small 

 faint spots. And not a few have drawn the corollary, that 

 by the discoveries of Lord Rosse the ^N'ebular Hypothesis 

 has been disproved. 



Now, even supposing that these inferences respecting 

 the distances and natures of the nebulae are valid, they leave 

 the iSTebular Hypothesis substantially as it was. Admit- 

 ting that each of those faint spots is a sidereal system, so 

 far removed that its countless stars give less light than 

 one small star of our own sidereal system ; the admission 

 is in no way inconsistent with the belief, that stars and their 

 attendant planets have been formed by the aggregation of 

 nebulous matter. Though, doubtless, if the existence of 

 nebulous matter now in course of concentration be dis- 

 proved, one of the evidences of the Nebular Hypothesis is 

 destroyed ; yet the remaining evidences remain just as they 

 were. It is a perfectly tenable position, that though nebu- 

 lar condensation is now nowhere to be seen in progress, yet 

 it was once going on universally. And, indeed, it might 

 be argiued that the still-continued existence of diffused 

 nebulous matter is scarcely to be expected ; seeing that 

 the causes which have resulted in the aggregation of one 



