24 THE PROGRESS AND SPIRIT OF 



induction from our observations upon them. But ages are the 

 field in which the astronomer works ; and each present fact, 

 duly recorded, ministers to the higher knowledge, which is the 

 harvest of the future. The research into the proper motions 

 of the stars, already noticed, is sure to be greatly extended, 

 and may possibly connect itself in the end (as Madler has 

 already sought to connect it) with the discovery of some centre 

 of attraction and movement to the whole sidereal system. If 

 such central body or point in space were ever ascertained, it 

 would still be simply an expression of the law of universal 

 gravitation ; but how sublime an expression, and how won- 

 derful as a result of the genius and labours of man ! 



But the limit does not lie even here. The telescope of the 

 astronomer, enlarged in its powers and more perfect in all its 

 appliances, is continually engaged among those other sidereal 

 or nebular systems, the remoteness of which goes far to ex- 

 press all that man can ever conceive of the infinite in space. 

 Whoever has inspected the admirable portraits of nebulae, 

 as seen through Lord Eosse's great reflector, will comprehend 

 in part the magnitude of this research, and of the problems it 

 puts before us. The aspects and multiplicity of the spiral 

 nebulae, though hardly sanctioning the notion of any new law 

 of matter, yet well warrant the belief in some common but 

 unknown cause conducing to this singular effect. A matter 

 of still higher interest is suggested to us in the question, 

 whether there exist in these nebulous lights, or elsewhere in 

 space, matter not yet condensed or shapen into forms the 

 material, it may be, of future worlds, and in different stages 

 of progressive concentration, but still not aggregated as such. 

 The resolution into clusters of stars, by high telescopic power, 

 of many nebulae before thought irresolvable, alters the degree 

 of presumption, but does not settle the question. The com- 

 parison of different nebulae, as they now exist, and of their 

 several relations to centres or points of greatest condensation, 



