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CHAPTER III. 



SEQUEL TO THE EPOCH OF NEWTON. RECEPTION 

 OF THE NEWTONIAN THEORY. 



Sect. 1. General Remarks. 



THE doctrine of universal gravitation, like other 

 great steps in science, required a certain time 

 to mal^e its way into men's minds; and had to be 

 confirmed, illustrated, and completed, by the labours 

 of succeeding philosophers. As the discovery itself 

 was great beyond former example, the features of 

 the natural sequel to the discovery were also on a 

 gigantic scale ; and many vast and laborious trains 

 of research, each of which might, in itself, be con- 

 sidered as forming a wide science, and several of 

 which have occupied many profound and zealous 

 inquirers from that time to our own day, come 

 before us as parts only of the verification of New- 

 ton's theory. Almost everything that has been 

 done, and is doing, in astronomy, falls inevitably 

 under this description; and it is only when the 

 astronomer travels to the very limits of his vast 

 field of labour, that he falls in with phenomena 

 which do not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the 

 Newtonian legislation. We must give some account 



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