363 



THE STELLAR UNIVERSE. 



Fig. 20. 



was five seconds and a half, and in 1830 it was a little more than four seconds 

 and a half. Although Sir William Herschel, as above stated, conjectured the 

 period of revolution to be about 343 years, yet later astronomers, from a com- 

 parison of all the observations recently made, are disposed to conclude that its 

 period is little more than 250 years. 



Thus in each succeeding age has the sagacity and perseverance of astrono- 

 mers unfolded laws prevailing in the material universe, whose range appears 

 to have no Dther limit than those of that universe itself. When Galileo, soon 

 after the invention of the telescope, ascertained the existence of the system of 

 Jupiter and his moons', exhibiting on a small scale that of the sun and the 

 planets, and offered it to the world as an analogy strikingly corrobv)rative of 

 the Copernican hypothesis, the announcement of the Florentine observer was 

 received with incredulity, and philosophers themselves rejected it, some de- 

 claring that they could not give credence to it, even though attested by the 

 evidence of their senses. What would have been said if the inspiration of 

 Galileo had prompted the anticipation of sun revolving round sun of system 

 revolving round system united by the same ruling principle bound by the 

 same tie, and exhibiting a regular subordination to the same laws, which con- 

 fer such stability, harmony, and regularity, on the movements of the solar sys- 

 tem ! Such are the results which these stellar discoveries bring before us. 

 A stupendous luminous globe, surrounded by a system of planets with their 

 attendant satellites, presides in the centre. Around it, at a distance incompara- 

 bly greater than. the distances of its planets, circulates another sun, attended 

 by another system of planets and satellites similar to the first, but on a reduced 

 scale ! The lights of these associated suns are of different hues, but their 

 tints are so related, that when blended together they will produce a daylight 

 like that of the solar system. The distances of the planets composing each 

 of these systems, from their respective suns, bear a proportion to the distance 

 which intervenes between these suns similar, doubtless, to that which the 

 distances of the satellites of Jupiter or Saturn bear to the distances of these 

 planets from the sun. "A less distinctly characterized subordination would," 

 as Sir John Herschel observes, " be incompatible with the stability of their 

 system, and with the planetary nature of their orbits. Unless closely nestled 



