ISO HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



Speculations so attractive by a watcher with an eye 

 so keen to detect chinks in the armour, that concealed 

 nature's most secret workings, could not fail to be 

 affected by new facts, as they forced themselves on his 

 observation. He found in course of years that " the 

 hypothesis of an equality and an equal distribution of 

 stars is too far from being strictly true to be laid down 

 as an unerring guide in this research. . . . This con- 

 sideration is fully sufficient to shew that, how much 

 truth soever there may be in the hypothesis of an 

 equal distribution and equality of stars, when con- 

 sidered in a general view, it can be of no service in a 

 case where great accuracy is required." Fifteen years 

 later he wrote : " When we examine the Milky Way, or 

 the closely compressed clusters of stars, this supposed 

 equality of scattering must be given up." It is clear 

 that, until the distance and mutual relations of the 

 fixed stars were ascertained, mere speculations on their 

 size and brilliance were out of place. He found also 

 that Cassini's classification of nebulae was at least 

 incomplete or defective. He was leaning to the belief 

 that some of the nebulae are masses of shining gas, 

 while there may be vast masses or regions of it still 

 dark ; but these and other matters must be referred to 

 another chapter. It is enough in the meanwhile to 

 say that twenty-five years of further research wrought 

 a change on the views he once expressed. But they 

 also brought into distincter prominence the changeful 

 character of even the starry heavens. They had 

 wrought no change on the awe with which his con- 

 temporaries, however trifling they might be, regarded 

 " the profusion of worlds on worlds " revealed to their 

 view. The immense multiplication of life on our 



