SIDEEEAL ASTRONOMY. 343 



find in the volume before us any explicit notice of this 

 question ; though much that is valuable in the account of the 

 photometrical researches recently applied to the stars. 



The discovery of the translation of our own Solar system 

 in space, and of the absolute motions of the fixed stars (as 

 they have been termed), is another of the achievements of 

 modern astronomy. At this time, indeed, no proof exists that 

 any body in the universe is stationary in the strict sense of 

 the word. All present evidence tends rather to establish the 

 universality of motion, wherever there is matter in state of 

 aggregation; or perhaps we may say, matter in any state, 

 We have elsewhere, for the purpose of illustration, spoken of 

 that great and continuous movement of our own Sun (fully 

 proved by the observations of astronomers), which is carrying 

 it in the direction of a point in the constellation Hercules, at 

 the rate of more than 140 millions of miles every year. The 

 absolute motion ascertained of several other stars (inde- 

 pendently of the orbital revolutions of the double stars, and 

 with deduction of all that belongs to the precession of the 

 equinoxes, the nutation of the earth's axis, the aberration of 

 light, and parallax) attests a great fact in the economy of 

 creation, which one can scarcely regard without a certain 

 feeling of awe, associated as it is with evidence thus won- 

 derful of the number, magnitude, and remoteness of these 

 surrounding worlds. The amount of annual motion now 

 measured in different stars varies from l-20th of a second 

 to nearly 8 seconds ; and without any relation between the 

 actual amount and the brightness of the star. In the 2,000 

 years elapsed since the time of Hipparchus, the proper 

 motion of Arcturus must have altered the position of this 

 star in the heavens 2^ diameters of the Moon ; while one of 

 the stars in the Swan must have moved over a space of 6 

 diameters in the same period. In this part of astronomy 

 especially, time cannot fail to confirm and extend the facts 



