142 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



and northern hemispheres at more than twelve 

 millions in number." 



The average of many hundreds of these gauges 

 gave him what he called " the contents of the heavens." 

 Where the stars were exceedingly crowded, " no more 

 than half a field was counted, and even sometimes 

 only a quadrant " ; but the result of these vast labours 

 was that the Milky Way could not be described as 

 other than "a very extensive, branching, compound 

 congeries of many millions of stars; which, most 

 probably, owes its origin to many remarkably large 

 as well as pretty closely scattered small stars, that 

 may have drawn together the rest." Imagination 

 stands appalled at the thought of millions of shining 

 stars, each of the same kindred as our sun, and each, it 

 may be supposed, with a train of habitable worlds like 

 his planets, all circling round their central orb. The 

 littleness of man, the smallness of human life, the 

 meanness of its petty details, that usually fill the 

 whole horizon of human thought, are dwarfed into 

 nothingness in presence of these stupendous realities, 

 till even they become insignificant before the nobler 

 and more inspiring conception of the grandeur of 

 the soul, which measures and weighs these innumer- 

 able suns, which takes them up in the hollow of its 

 hand, which deals with them as playthings for its 

 leisure moments, and which says to every one of 

 them, I am greater and of more worth than thou, 

 yes, greater than all your millions put together. 

 " There is no speech nor language where their voice 

 is not heard." 



By these star gauges Herschel did a service to the 

 world, for which humanity can never be sufficiently 



