■^SS PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1 767. 



at one second, supposing him to be of the same size and native brightness with 

 the sun ; this therefore he assumes as a standard, till some better experiments 

 shall inform us more exactly of the quantity of his light. Now, according to 

 the best judgment he was able to make from some gross experiments, the quan- 

 tity of light which we receive from Sirius does not exceed the light which we re- 

 ceive from the least fixed stars of the 6th magnitude, in a greater proportion 

 than that of 1000 to 1, nor in a less proportion than that of 400 to J ; and the 

 smaller stars of the 2d magnitude seem to be about a mean proportional between 

 the two. Hence the whole parallax of the least fixed stars of the 6th magnitude, 

 supposing them of the same size and native brightness with the sun, should be 

 from about l"' to 3'", and their distance from about 8 to 12 million times that 

 of the sun: and the parallax of the smaller stars of the 2d magnitude, on the 

 same supposition, should be about 1 2'", and their distance about 2 million times 

 that of the sun. ^^ 



Mr. M. has hitherto argued about the distances of the fixed stars, on tUH^p- 

 position of their being of the same size and brightness with the sun ; and if this 

 was really so, those which appear the brightest must be the nearest to us. That 

 this is in general the case, will be very readily allowed; for though it is true, 

 that a much greater degree of real magnitude may compensate for the greatness 

 of distance, and there is no reason for assigning any one limit to them rather 

 than another ; yet when it is as likely that the largest stars should be in any one 

 part of space as in any other, the probability in favour of this hypothesis is very 

 great : the real motions also, which have been observed among several of the 

 brightest of the fixed stars, is another argument to the same purpose ; and we 

 shall find it still further confirmed by very strong arguments of analogy drawn 

 from the circumstances of the particular situation of the stars in the heavens. 



It has always been usual with astronomers to dispose the fixed stars into con- 

 stellations: this has been done for the sake of remembering and distinguishing 

 them, and therefore it has in general been done merely arbitrarily, and with this 

 view only ; nature herself however seems to have distinguished them into groups. 

 What he means is, that from the apparent situation of the stars in the heavens, 

 there is the highest probability, that either by the original act of the Creator, or 

 in consequence of some general law, such perhaps as gravity, they are collected 

 together in great numbers in some parts of space, while in others there are either 

 few or none. The argument he intends to make use of, in order to prove this, 

 is of that kind which infers either design, or some general law, from a general 

 analogy, and the greatness of the odds against things having been in the present 

 situation, if it was not owing to some such cause. 



Let us then examine what it is probable would have been the least apparent 

 distance of any two or more stars, any where in the whole heavens, on the sup- 



