A MATERIAL WORLD. 



19 



lie 'endeavoured to account for the production of every other planet of the 

 solar system. 



But of all this class of speculations, (for assuredly they deserve no higher 

 character,) the most splendid and comprehensive is that which viras first 

 embraced by Dr. Herschel, and was perhaps an improvement on a prior 

 hypothesis of M. Buffon ; but which, so precarious is the life of a philo- 

 sophical hypothesis, he himself discarded, not many years afterwards, for 

 something newer. It supposes the existence of an immense mass of opake 

 but igneous matter, seated in the centre of universal nature ; that the sun 

 and every other star were originally portions of this common substance ; 

 but it is volcanic in its structure, and subject to eruptions of inconceivable 

 force and violence ; that the sun and every other luminary of every other 

 system were thrown forth from it at different times, by the operation of 

 such projectile powers ; and that these, possessing in a great degree the 

 ■qualities of the parent body, threw forth afterwards at different times, by 

 means of similar volcanoes, portions of their own substance, each of which, 

 by the common laws of projectiles, assumed an orbicular motion, con- 

 stituted a distinct planet, and became the chaos of a rising world.* Hence, 

 according to this comprehensive and daring hypothesis, the existing uni- 

 verse has acquired its birth ; hence new systems of worlds are perpetually 

 rising into being, and new planets are added to systems already created. 



But worlds and systems of worlds are not only perpetually creating, they 

 are also perpetually diminishing and disappearing. It is an extraordinary 

 fact, that within the period of the last century, not less than thirteen stars 

 in different constellations, none of them below the sixth magnitude, seem 

 totally to have perished ; forty to have changed their magnitude by becom- 

 ing either much larger or much smaller ; and ten new stars to have supplied 

 the place of those that are lost.j Some of these changes may perhaps be 

 accounted for by supposing a proper motion in the solar or sidereal systems, 

 by which the relative positions of several of the heavenly bodies have varied. 

 But this explanation, though it may apply to several of the cases, will by 

 no means apply to all of them ^ in many instances it is unquestionable, that 

 the stars themselves, the supposed habitations of other kinds or orders of 

 intelligent beings, together with the different planets by which it is probable 

 they were surrounded, and to which they may have given hght and fructify- 

 ing seasons, as the sun gives hght and fruitfulness to the earth, have utterly 

 vanished, and the spots which they occupied in the heavens have become 

 blanks. What has thus befallen other systems will assuredly befall our 

 own ; of the time and the manner we know nothing, but the fact is incon- 

 trovertible ; it is foretold by revelation, it is inscribed in the heavens, it 

 is felt throughout the earth. Such is the awful and daily text ; what then 

 ought to be the comment ? 



* Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxxiv. 



X See Dr. Herschel's Observatiens compared witli Flamsteed's, Phil. Trans. toI, Ixxiii. 



