HERSCHEL'S RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS 215 



brother William's death, "parted with her little 

 property," and " thought at that time she should not 

 live a twelvemonth." She lived for twenty-six years 

 after, "alone" and disappointed. During that long 

 period she gave expression to hopes which may be 

 justly regarded as echoes of sentiments expressed by 

 her brother. Unquestionably her mind was a mirror 

 that truly reflected his. It is evident also from his 

 conversation with Thomas Campbell that he enter- 

 tained a horror of hypocrisy, which may have imposed 

 silence on him when he would otherwise have spoken 

 out. Once, in a philosophical paper, he did speak out 

 on a future state of rewards and punishments. Had 

 the matter not lain very near his heart, he would 

 scarcely have written as he did. The subject of the 

 paper was the Constitution of the Sun. Referring 

 to the views of certain writers on the place of punish- 

 ment for the wicked, he says 



" The sun, viewed in this light, appears to be nothing 

 else than a very eminent, large, and lucid planet, 

 evidently the first, or in strictness of speaking, the 

 only primary one of our system ; all others being truly 

 secondary to it. Its similarity to the other globes of 

 the solar system with regard to its solidity, its 

 atmosphere, and its diversified surface; the rotation 

 upon its axis, and the fall of heavy bodies, leads us on 

 to suppose that it is most probably inhabited, like 

 the rest of the planets, by beings whose organs are 

 adapted to the peculiar circumstances of that vast 

 globe. 



" Whatever fanciful poets might say, in making the 

 sun the abode of blessed spirits, or angry moralists 

 devise, in pointing it out as a fit place for the punish- 



