288 3 HERSCHEL. 
probabilities. Herschel passed those limits. He himself 
proved that the sun positively moves; and that, in this 
respect also, that immense and dazzling body must be 
ranged among the stars ; that the apparently inextricable 
irregularities of numerous sidereal proper motions arise 
in great measure from the displacement of the solar sys- 
tem ; that, in short, the point of space towards which we 
are annually advancing, is situated in the constellation of 
Hercules. 
These are magnificent results. The discovery of the 
proper motion of our system will always be accounted 
among Herschel’s highest claims to glory, even after the 
mention that my duty as historian has obliged me to 
make of the anterior conjectures by Fontenelle, by Brad- 
ley, by. Mayer, and by Lambert. 
By the side of this great discovery we should te? 
another, that seems likely to expand in future. ‘The 
results which it allows us to hope for will be of extreme 
importance. The discovery here alluded to was an- 
nounced to the learned world in 1803; it is that of the 
reciprocal dependence of several stars, connected the one 
with the other, as the several planets and their satellites 
of our system are with the sun. 
Let us to these immortal labours add the ingenious 
ideas that we owe to Herschel on the nebula, on the 
constitution of the Milky-way, on the universe as a 
whole ; ideas which almost by themselves constitute the 
actual history of the formation of the worlds, and we can- 
not but have a deep reverence for that powerful genius 
that has scarcely ever erred, notwithstanding an ardent 
imagination. 
