178 



SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS. 



out in the philosophical poem of Lucretius, who argues the collapse of the celestial 

 bodies, and the return of chaos, without such a motion : 



" Were the entire of nature thus confin'd, 



Thus circumscrib'd precise, from its own weight 

 Long since, all matter to th' extremest depth 

 Had sunk supine : nor aught the skies beneath, 

 Nor skies themselves, with countless stars adorn'd, 

 And sun's unsuffering splendour, had remain' d. 

 Down, down th' accumulated mass had fall'n 

 From earliest time, devoid of power to rise. 

 All, all is action." 



Herschel conceived the sun with his cortege of planets to be travelling gradually to a 

 point in the heavens in the constellation Hercules ; and reasoning from the analogy of the 

 proper motion of the stars, the conclusion is probable that the solar system is not at rest, 

 however uncertain the direction and rate of the movement. As far as the domains of the 

 creation have been examined, if is very evident that action orderly and useful action 

 is every where prominent. Man in his slothfulness, or whirled heedlessly along by his 

 passions, may take this as an emphatic though silent rebuke to himself, as at variance with 

 one of the universal laws of nature. 



CHAPTER X. 



NEBULAE. 



FAR more astonishing than any of the details upon which we 

 have hitherto dwelt, are those relating to the class of celestial ob- 

 jects we have now to consider, the investigation of which is at pre- 

 sent the highest branch of practical astronomy. In directing our 

 attention to Nebulae, we leave what may comparatively be called 

 home regions, strang'e as the phrase appears, when we recollect 

 the distance intervening between us and the nearest of the stars. 

 But such language is strictly appropriate with reference to the 

 stars visible to the naked eye, and reached by ordinary telescopic 

 aid. They form our firmament or cluster, near the centre of which the solar system is 



