294 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. FT. III. 



perfect and constant round. Laplace shows the reason ot 

 those irregularities which seemed to contradict Newton's 

 law of gravitation, and proves that they are all explained by 

 that law, thus completing the work of the great astronomer. 

 Then Herschel takes up the story, and after discovering a 

 new planet, he studies the cloudy nebulae, and points out 

 the probable formation of new suns going on now in far- 

 distant regions ; he pictures our own sun rushing through 

 space at the rate of 150,000,000 miles a year, carrying with 

 it our earth and all the other planets ; and above all he traces 

 the law of gravitation into the distant star-world, and shows 

 it there holding suns together and causing them to revolve 

 round each other. And so, out into space as far as the 

 mind can reach, we find everlasting order reigning through- 

 out the visible universe. 



List of Works consulted, Herschel's Astronomy ;' Arago, 'Vie 

 et travaux de Herschel,' 1843; Proctor's 'Essays on Astronomy,' 

 'The Universe,' 'Other Worlds than ours;' Grant's ' Histoiy of 

 Physical Astronomy;' Arago, ' Eloge of Laplace;' Airy's 'Astro- 

 nomy ;' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' Astronomy j' Orbs of Heaven,' 



Mitchell. 



