58 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLOGICAL 



planets are in the ratio of the cubes of their mean distances, 

 was first developed in the " Harmonice Mundi," in 1619. 



The transition from natural to telescopic vision, which 

 marks the first ten years of the seventeenth century, and 

 forms an epoch in astronomy, or the knowledge of celestial 

 space, even more important than 1492 had been to the 

 knowledge of terrestrial space, not only enlarged indefinitely 

 our view into creation, but also, by proposing for solution 

 new and intricate problems, became the means of raising 

 mathematical knowledge to a degree of brilliancy never 

 before attained. Thus the strengthening of the organs of 

 sense reacted upon the world of thought, leading to the 

 invigoration of the intellectual power, and to the ennoble- 

 ment of humanity. We owe to the telescope alone, 

 within the space of two centuries and a half, the knowledge 

 of 1 3 new planets, and 4 new systems of satellites (4 belong- 

 ing to Jupiter, 8 to Saturn, 4, perhaps 6, to Uranus, and 1 

 to Neptune) ; of the solar spots and faculse ; of the phases 

 of Venus ; of the form and elevation of the mountains in the 

 moon ; of the winter polar zones of Mars ; of the belts of 

 Jupiter and Saturn; the ring of Saturn; the interior (plane- 

 tary) comets of short periods of revolution ; and of many 

 other phsenomena which, like these, escape the perception 

 of the unassisted eye. If our solar system, which was so long 

 limited to 6 planets and 1 satellite, has been thus enriched 

 within the last 240 years, what is called the " heaven of the 

 fixed stars" has, during the same period, received a still more 

 unexpected extension. Thousands of nebulae, clusters of 

 stars, and double stars, have been catalogued. The variable 

 position of the double stars which revolve around a common 

 centre of gravity, as well as the proper motion of all the 



