Returning homewards, through those profound abysses, to whose extremities we have adventured, and leisurely surveying the objects whose number and varieties struck us at first with an absorbing and most natural astonishment, we soon start the enquiry, What are these clusters doing?—What is their internal condition?—What their mechanisms?—And what the nature and affections of the bodies which compose them? It is manifest, that such investigations, in so far as we would rest them on observation, must be confined within our own cluster—the telescope, which has revealed the dim lustre of others, still failing to discriminate the peculiarities of their individual orbs; but if we analyze the system of which we form a part, and become familiar with the mode of its existence, a cautious use of the argument from analogy, will at least darkly illumine the obscurer objects which surround it.

I. In the first place, it is of importance to ascertain whether the stars are individually characterised by the same leading features, or—taking our Sun, which we know best, as a pattern object—whether and how far the distinct orbs of remote space may be accounted to resemble him? The old notion that these luminaries are of no significancy, except as ornaments to the earth, has lost hold, I believe, of all classes of minds, so that, assuming that the stars are also suns, shining like our luminary, of their own perennial virtue, we may step at once to consideration of the second or next higher point of probable resemblance,—are these myriads of suns encircled, like ours, by schemes of subservient planetary worlds?

The disclosures of the telescope are now before us5—the entire perspective of Modern Astromomy. Can we comprehend its wonders? Are its arrangements a fixed thing—a mere passing show—or are they results of a pre-existing state, and germinant of something future? These questions warn me, that again we break new ground, and enter on speculations, perhaps the most adventurous which have yet engaged the reason of Man.

Astronomy has recently been obliged to recognise a Matter—or rather a modification of Matter, wholly distinct from stars—a thin and filmy substance diffused through the stellar intervals, and spreading over regions so immense, that its magnitude or the space it fills, is absolutely inconceivable. It unquestionably becomes us not to admit an element so remarkable, and which, if real, must perform important functions, and materially affect our general views of things—until its claims have undergone the severest scrutiny ; and as I am desirous to convey to you full power of judging for yourself, I will here minutely follow the process of thought, by which Sir, William Herschel—only, however, at a comparatively late period in the course of his researches—was, slowly and almost reluctantly, led to the conviction of its reality.

In his earlier inquiries, Herschel was inclined to consider all the faintly illuminated spots in the heavens, as clusters so remote, that only their general illumination, and no individual object could be seen; and the inference, so far from being constrained, seemed to result from his whole previous experience.