An Expository Outline of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation | Page 4

of a

second in the star 61 Cygni, and in the constellation of the Centaur
HENDERSON found another star whose parallax amounted to one
second. Of the million of fixed glittering points that adorn the sky,
these are the only two whose distances have been calculated, and to
express them, miles, leagues, or orbits seems inadequate. Light, whose
speed is known to be 192,000 miles per second, would be three years in
reaching our earth from the star of HENDERSON; and starting from
BESSEL'S star and moving at the same rate it could only reach us in
ten years. These are the nearest stars, but there are others whose
distances are immeasurably greater, and whose light, though starting
from them at the beginning of creation, may not have reached our
globe!
The stars visible to the eye are about 3,000, but the number increases
with every increase of telescopic power, and may be said to be
innumerable. They are not of uniform lustre or form, but vary in figure
and brightness. Some of them have a nebulous or cloudy appearance;
and there are entire clusters with this dusky aspect, mostly pervaded,
however, with luminous points of more brilliant hue. In the outer fields
of astral space Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL observed a multitude of
nebulæ, one or two of which may be seen by the naked eye. All of them,
when seen by instruments of low power, look like masses of luminous
vapour; but some of them had brighter spots, suggesting to Sir
WILLIAM the idea of a condensation of the nebulous matter round one
or more centres. But when these luminous masses are examined by
more powerful instruments many of them lose their cloudy form, and
are resolved into shining points, "like spangles of diamond dust." It is
in this way several nebulæ have yielded to the gigantic reflector of
Lord ROSSE, and others with still greater optical resources may follow.
This brings us to the first questionable and controversial portion of the
Vestiges; namely,--the
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS.
It is among the gaseous bodies just described, in the outer boundary of
Nature, which neither telescope nor geometry can well reach, that
speculation has laid its venue, and commenced its aerial castles.

LAPLACE was the first to suggest the nebular hypothesis, which he
did with great diffidence, not as a theory proved, or hardly likely, but as
a mathematical possibility or illustration. His range of creation,
moreover, was not so vast as that of our author, which assumes to
compass the entire universe, but was limited to the evolution of the
solar system. The mode in which this might be evolved, LAPLACE
thus explains:--
He conjectures that in the original condition of the solar system the sun
revolved upon his axis, surrounded by an atmosphere which, in virtue
of an excessive heat, extended far beyond the orbits of all the planets,
the planets as yet having no existence. The heat gradually diminished,
and as the solar atmosphere contracted by cooling, the rapidity of its
rotation increased by the laws of rotatory motion, and an exterior zone
of vapour was detached from the rest, the central attraction being no
longer able to overcome the increased centrifugal force. The zone of
vapour might in some cases retain its form, as we still see in Saturn's
ring; but more usually the ring of vapour would break into several
masses, and these would generally coalesce into one mass, which
would revolve about the sun. Such portions of the solar atmosphere
abandoned successively at different distances, would form planets in
the state of vapour. These masses of vapour, it appears from
mechanical laws, would have each its rotatory motion, and as the
cooling of the vapour still went on, would each produce a planet that
might have satellites and rings formed from the planet, in the same
manner as the planets were formed from the atmosphere of the sun.
All the known motions of the solar system are consistent and
reconcileable with this theory of LAPLACE, and upon it the author of
the Vestiges has enlarged and founded his wider scheme of physical
creation. He supposes the void of nature to have been originally filled
with a universal FIRE MIST (p. 30), out of which all the celestial orbs
were made and put in motion. How this mist was put in activity, and
resolved into the luminous and revolving bodies that we now see, and
one of which we inhabit is the first urgent perplexity to surmount in the
conjecture. It is manifest that if a mist filled the entire region of space,
a mist it must for ever remain, unless acted upon by some cause

adequate to give it new action and arrangement. No sun, no stars or
planets could spontaneously emanate from an inert vapour any more
than