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Article THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE HEAVENS. ← Page 2 of 4 →
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The Architecture Of The Heavens.
composed , that is to say , what has been aggregated into suns , planets , and their attendant bodies ; and by a process of inductive reasoning , most accurately tested hy experiment as far as that could be carried under such difficult circumstances , the result attained is , that those solid masses , the recipients m their later periods of vegetation and life , from its first sprmgings to the full gush of its nearest approach to superior intelligenceare the product of nebulous matter pervadingin less
, , a more or compacted shape , all space ; and which , bv the great power of gravitation influencing all matter , has been progressively formed into the multitudinous processes , from its primary faint and lucid aggregation to the solid and glorious matter composing our sun . This discovery it is shown accounts full y for many otherwise inscrutable phenomena in the visible universe . We supply a slight glimpse of the process of reasoning suggested to Herschel through the agency ofthe great telescope .
According as the sphere of the reflector used b y him was increased , more and more remote distinct clusters of starry matter , invisible to the lesser power , were revealed , presenting the same appearance as the more near and easily resolvable , and those which before had but a diffused milk y hue , then seemed like a handful of glittering dust . " "When I pursued these researches , " says our Astronomer , " I was in the situation of a natural philosopher , who follows the various species of animals and insects from the hei ght of their perfection down to the lowest ebb
of life ; when arriving at the vegetable kingdom , he can scarcely point out the precise boundary where the anim al ceases and the plant begins , and may even go so far as to suspect them not to be essentiall y different but recollecting himself he compares , for instance , one of the human species ivith a tree , and all doubt upon the subject vanishes before him . In the same manner we pass by gentle steps from a coarse cluster down through others more remote , and therefore of a finer texture , without hesitationtill find ourselves
any , we brought to an object , such as the nebula in Orion , when we are still inclined to remain in our own adopted idea of stars exceedingly remote and inconceivably crowded , as bein ° - the occasion of that remarkable occurrence . It seems , therefore , to require a more dissimilar object to bring us right again . A glance , like that of the naturalist , who casts his eye from the perfect vegetable to the perfect animal , is wanting to remove the veil from the mind of the astronomer " Herschel
, pervagating space , found a star of the eighth magnitude , with a faint luminous atmosphere , of a circular form ; the star perfectly in the centre , and the atmosphere so diluted , faint , and equal throughout , that no surmise of its consisting of stars could be entertained . ° This luminous atmosphere he then shows , is the nebulous matter of which all aggregate bodies , cognizable to us , are formed , and the central starry and more luminous substance thus observed , the commencing nucleus of that which , in the progress of Greati ve Will , and according to unvarying law impressed by DEITY , is now—and who shall say how long has heen " " —forming into a system like our sun . The nebula in Orion is diKl
tmctly visible to the naked eye ; but when seen through the medium of the forty-foot telescope—for the powers of which we refer to a former paper of this series—the stars composing its substance cannot be resolved into distinct systems ! The nebula in the girdle of Andromeda is also visible to the naked eye , looking like a greasy spot on the firmament yet no means have yet been attained of rendering its components resolvable . Further arguments of the existence of these luminous nebulas extending throughout the universe are found in the composition and
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Architecture Of The Heavens.
composed , that is to say , what has been aggregated into suns , planets , and their attendant bodies ; and by a process of inductive reasoning , most accurately tested hy experiment as far as that could be carried under such difficult circumstances , the result attained is , that those solid masses , the recipients m their later periods of vegetation and life , from its first sprmgings to the full gush of its nearest approach to superior intelligenceare the product of nebulous matter pervadingin less
, , a more or compacted shape , all space ; and which , bv the great power of gravitation influencing all matter , has been progressively formed into the multitudinous processes , from its primary faint and lucid aggregation to the solid and glorious matter composing our sun . This discovery it is shown accounts full y for many otherwise inscrutable phenomena in the visible universe . We supply a slight glimpse of the process of reasoning suggested to Herschel through the agency ofthe great telescope .
According as the sphere of the reflector used b y him was increased , more and more remote distinct clusters of starry matter , invisible to the lesser power , were revealed , presenting the same appearance as the more near and easily resolvable , and those which before had but a diffused milk y hue , then seemed like a handful of glittering dust . " "When I pursued these researches , " says our Astronomer , " I was in the situation of a natural philosopher , who follows the various species of animals and insects from the hei ght of their perfection down to the lowest ebb
of life ; when arriving at the vegetable kingdom , he can scarcely point out the precise boundary where the anim al ceases and the plant begins , and may even go so far as to suspect them not to be essentiall y different but recollecting himself he compares , for instance , one of the human species ivith a tree , and all doubt upon the subject vanishes before him . In the same manner we pass by gentle steps from a coarse cluster down through others more remote , and therefore of a finer texture , without hesitationtill find ourselves
any , we brought to an object , such as the nebula in Orion , when we are still inclined to remain in our own adopted idea of stars exceedingly remote and inconceivably crowded , as bein ° - the occasion of that remarkable occurrence . It seems , therefore , to require a more dissimilar object to bring us right again . A glance , like that of the naturalist , who casts his eye from the perfect vegetable to the perfect animal , is wanting to remove the veil from the mind of the astronomer " Herschel
, pervagating space , found a star of the eighth magnitude , with a faint luminous atmosphere , of a circular form ; the star perfectly in the centre , and the atmosphere so diluted , faint , and equal throughout , that no surmise of its consisting of stars could be entertained . ° This luminous atmosphere he then shows , is the nebulous matter of which all aggregate bodies , cognizable to us , are formed , and the central starry and more luminous substance thus observed , the commencing nucleus of that which , in the progress of Greati ve Will , and according to unvarying law impressed by DEITY , is now—and who shall say how long has heen " " —forming into a system like our sun . The nebula in Orion is diKl
tmctly visible to the naked eye ; but when seen through the medium of the forty-foot telescope—for the powers of which we refer to a former paper of this series—the stars composing its substance cannot be resolved into distinct systems ! The nebula in the girdle of Andromeda is also visible to the naked eye , looking like a greasy spot on the firmament yet no means have yet been attained of rendering its components resolvable . Further arguments of the existence of these luminous nebulas extending throughout the universe are found in the composition and