Part 5 (2/2)

In away in which the heavens appeared to hi the heavens seeht

”They are now seen to resereatest variety of productions in different flourishi+ng beds; and one advantage we may at least reap froe of our experience to an i whether we live successively to witness the ger, and corruption of a plant, or whether a vast nuh which the plant passes in the course of its existence be brought at once to our view?”

The thought here is no less finely expressed than it is profound The si the vast variety each state of being from every other, and if the very luxuriance of illustration in the heavens does not bewilder and overpower thepower that HERSCHEL possessed in perfection

There is a kind of hue of opinion:

”I forh, owing to luminous points like h to venture off the edge of the ring and appear as a satellite”

In 1782 he replies with a certain concealed sharpness to the idea that he used h There is a tone al to a criticis by nify too much till by experience I find that I can see better with a lower power” (1782)

By 1786, when he returns to this subject, in answer to a fornifiers, he is quite over any irritation, and treats the subject almost with playfulness:

”Soon after h poith the Newtonian telescope, I began to doubt whether an opinion which has been entertained by several erow indistinct when the optic pencils are less than the fiftieth part of an inch,' would hold good in all cases I perceived that according to this criterion I was not entitled to see distinctly with a power of much more than about 320 in a seven-foot telescope of an aperture of six and four-tenths inches, whereas in nifiers which far exceeded such narrow liy to ht to have seen less distinctly, to make a few experiments”

It is needless to say that these experiments proved that froht, and that his high powers had nuoes on to say:

”Had it not been for a late conversation with soht probably have left the papers on which these experi the rest of those that are laid aside, when they have afforded me the information I want”

The last sentence seems to be a kind of notice to his learned friends that there is yetto those to whose criticisives them this picture of the kind of assiduity which will be required, if some of his observations on double stars are to be repeated:

”It is in vain to look for these stars if every circumstance is not favorable The observer as well as the instruh out in the open air to acquire the same temperature In very cold weather an hour at least will be required” (1782)

We ht into his character fros:

”I have all along had truth and reality in view as the sole object ofsatisfied when I thought it possible to obtain more accurate measures, I employed [a more delicate apparatus]” (1783)

”To this end I have already begun a series of observations upon several zones of double stars, and should the result of theainst these conjectures, I shall be the first to point out their fallacy” (1783)

”There is a great probability of succeeding still farther in this laborious but delightful research, so as to be able at last to say not only how much the annual parallax _is not_, but how much it really _is_” (1782)

The nature of his philosophizing, and the limits which he set to himself, may bethese observations] I should undoubtedly be enabled to speak more confidently of the _interior_ _construction of the heavens_, and of its various _nebulous_ and sidereal strata As an apology for this pre co facts and observations, whatever we ation of this delicate nature we ought to avoid two opposite extreination, and build worlds of our oewide from the path of truth and nature On the other hand, if we add observation to observation without atte to draw not only certain conclusions but also conjectural views froainst the very end for which only observations ought to be made I will endeavor to keep a proper medium, but if I should deviate from that, I could wish not to fall into the latter error” (1785)

”As observations carefully made should always take the lead of theories, I shall not be concerned if what I have to say contradicts what has been said in my last paper on this subject” (1790)

No course of reasoning could be more simple, more exact, more profound, and more beautiful than this which follows:

”As it has been shown that the spherical figure of a cluster is owing to the action of central powers, it follows that those clusters which, _caeteris paribus_, are the est exposed to the action of these causes Thus the ed from the disposition of the component parts

”Hence planetary nebulae h we cannot see any individual nebula pass through all its stages of life, we can select particular ones in each peculiar stage” (1789)