If I had never seen these little democratical states, I could have for med no idea of the general equality and indistinction that prevails among the inhabitants. All the houses, like those of Appenzel, are built of wood; large, folid, and compact, with great pent-house roofs, that hang very low, and extend beyond the area of the foundation. This peculiar structure is of use to keep off the snow; and, from its fingularity, accords surprizingly with the beautiful wildness of the country. The houses of the rich er inhabitants in the principal burghs, are of the fame materials; the only difference consists in their being lar ger.

• If that fort of government be confessedly the best, which constitutes the greatest good of the greatest number in the community; these little states, notwithstanding the natural defects of a democratical constitution, may just ly claim a large share of our approbation. General liberty, general independence, and an exemption from arbitrary taxes, are blessings which amply compenfate for a want of those refinements that are introduced by opulence and luxury. However, it is only in these small republics, and in such a state of society, that this kind of general democracy can have place. And although the machine of go. vernment is confiderably clogged by that variety of wheels required to put

it into motion; yet it is not neceffary that its decisions should be fudden and expeditious; for, as there is no fear of an invafion, and as the people have no conquests, either to make or to defend; their principal policy confists in maintaining their independence, and in preserving the public tranquillity.

The police is well regulated thro'out Switzerland ; and even in these democratical states, liberty does not often degenerate into licentiousness; we may except, perhaps, the day of their general assemblies, when it is impossible to prevent fome degree of confufion in a meeting where there is scarcely any diftinction of persons; and where every peafant confiders himself as equal to the first magiftrate.

Our hoft is an open-hearted, ho nest Swiss; he brings his pint of wine, fits down to table with us, and chats without the least ceremony. There is a certain forwardness of this kind which is insupportable, when it apparently is the effect of impertinent curiosity, or fawning officiousness; but the present instance of trank familiarity, arising from a mind confcious of its natural equality, and unconstrained by arbitrary distinctions, is highly pleasing; s the fimpe demeanor of unsophisticated nature is far prefer able to the falfe refinements of artifi cial manners.'

T

HE method I have taken of analyzing the heavens, if I may so express myself, is perhaps the only one by which we can arrive at a knowledge of their construction. In the profecution of fo extensive an undertaking, it may well be supposed that many things must have been suggested,

by the great variety in the order, the size, and the compreffion of the stars, as they prefented themselves to my view, which it will not be improper to communicate.

To begin our investigation according to fome order, let us depart from the objects immediately around us to

the

the most remote that our telescopes, of the greatest power to penetrate into Space, can reach. We shall touch but flightly on things that have already been remarked.

From the earth, considered as a planet, and the moon as its fatellite, we pass through the region of the rest of the planets, and their fatellites. The fimilarity between all these bodies is sufficiently striking to allow us to comprehend them under one general definition of bodies, not luminous in themselves, revolving round the fun. The great diminution of light, when reflected from fuch bodies, especially when they are alfo at a great distance from the light which illuminates them, precludes all possibility of following them a great way into space. But if we did know that light diminishes as the squares of the distances increase, and that moreover in every reflection a very confiderable part is entirely loft, the motion of comets, whereby the space through which they run is meafured out to us, while on their return from the fun we see them gradually difappear as they advance towards their aphelia, would be sufficient to convince us, that bodies shining only with borrowed light can never be seen at any very great distance. This confideration brings us back to the fun, as a refulgent fountain of light, whilst it establishes at the fame time beyond a doubt that every star must likewife be a fun, shining by its own native brightness. Here then we come to the more capital parts of the great

construction.

These suns, every one of which is probably of as much consequence to a system of planets, fatellites, and comets, as our own fun, are now to be confidered, in their turn, as the minute parts of a proportionally greater whole. I need not repeat, that by my analysis it appears that the heavens confift of regions where funs are gathered into feparate systems, and that the catalogues i have

given comprehend a lift of such systems; but may we not hope that our knowledge will not ftop short at the bare enumeration of phenomena capable of giving us so much inftruction? Why should we be less inquisitive than the natural philosopher, who sometimes, even from an inconfiderable number of specimens of a plant, or an animal, is enabled to present us with the history of its rise, progress, and decay? Let us then compare together, and class some of these numerous fidereal groups, that we may trace the operations of natural causes as far as we can perceive their agency. The most fimple form, in which we can view a frdereal system, is that of being globular. This also, very favourably to our design, is that which has presented itself most frequently, and of which I have given the greatest collection, in my Catalogue of Nebulæ.

But, first of all, it will be necessary to explain what is our idea of a clufter of stars, and by what means we have obtained it. For an instance, I shall take the phenomenon which presents itself in many clusters: It is that of a number of lucid spots, of equal luftre, scattered over a circular space, in such a manner as to appear gradually more compressed towards the middle; and which compression, in the clusters to which I allude, is generally carried fo far, as, by imperceptible degrees, to end in a luminous center, of a refolvable blaze of light. To solve this appearance, it may be conjectured, that stars of any given, very unequal magnitudes, may easily be so arranged, in scattered, much extended, irregular rows, as to produce the above-described picture; or, that stars, scattered about almost promifcuoufly within the fruftum of a given cone, may be affigned of such properly-diversified magnitudes as also to form the fame picture. But who, that is acquainted with the doctrine of chances, can seriously maintain such improbable improbable conjectures? To consider this only in a very coarse way, let us suppose a cluster to confift of 5000 stars, and that each of them may be put into one of 5000 given places, and have one of 5000 affigned magnitudes. Then, without extending our calculation any further, we have five and twenty millions of chances, out of which only one will answer the above improbable conjecture, while all the rest are against it. When we now remark that this relates only to the given places within the frustum of a supposed cone, whereas these stars might have been scattered all over the visible space of the heavens; that they might have been scattered, even with in the supposed cone, in a million of places different from the affumed ones, the chance of this apparent cluster's not being a real one, will be rendered so highly improbable that it ought to be entirely rejected.

Mr Michell computes, with respect to the fix brightest stars of the Pieiades only, that the odds are near 500,000 to 1 that no fix stars, out of the number of those which are equal in splendour to the faintest of them, scattered at random in the whole heavens, would be within so small a diftance from each other as the Pleiades

are *.

Taking it then for granted that the stars which appear to be gathered together in a group are in reality thus accumulated, I proceed to prove alfo that they are nearly of an equal magnitude.

The cluster itself, on account of the small angle it fubtends to the eye, we must suppose to be very far removed from us. For, were the stars which compose it at the fame distance from one another as Sirius is from the fun; and supposing the clufter to be seen under an angle of 10 minutes, and to contain 50 stars in one of its diameters, we should have the mean distance of fuch stars twelve seconds;

and therefore the distance of the clufter from us about seventeen thousand times greater than the distance of Sirins. Now, fince the apparent magnitude of these stars is equal, and their distance from us is also equal,-because we may safely neglect the diameter of the cluster, which, if the center be seventeen thousand times the distance of Sirius from us, will give us seventeen thousand and twenty-five for the farthest, and seventeen thousand wanting twenty-five for the nearest star of the cluster; it follows that we must either give up the idea of a cluster, and recur to the above refuted supposition, or admit the equality of the stars that compose these clusters. It is to be remarked, that we do not mean entirely to exclude all variety of size; for the very great distance, and the consequent smallness of the component clustering stars, will not permit us to be extremely precise in the estimation of their magnitudes; tho we have certainly seen enough of them to know that they are contained within pretty narrow limits; and do not, perhaps, exceed each other in magnitude more than in some such proportion as one full-grown plant of a certain species may exceed another fullgrown plant of the same species.

If we have drawn proper conclusions relating to the fize of stars, we may with still greater safety speak of their relative situations, and affirm that in the fame distances from the center an equal scattering takes place. If this were not the cafe, the appearance of a cluster could not be uniformly increasing in brightness towards the middle, but would appear nebulous in those parts which were more crowded with stars; but, as far as we can diftinguish, in the clusters of which we speak, every concentric circle maintains an equal degree of compression, as long as the stars are visible; and when they become too crowded to be diftinguished, an equal brightness

brightness takes place, at equal diftances from the center, which is the most luminous part.

The next step in my argument will be to thew that these clusters are of a globular form. This again we rest on the found doctrine of chances. Here, by way of strength to our argument, we may be allowed to take in all round nebulæ, though the reafons we have for believing that they confift of stars have not as yet been entered into. For, what I have to say concerning their spherical figure will equally hold good whether they be groups of stars or not. In my catalogues we have, I fuppofe, not less than one thousand of these round ob jects. Now, whatever may be the thape of a group of stars, or of a Nebula, which we would introduce instead of the spherical one, such as a cone, an ellipfis, a spheroid, a circle, or a cylinder, it will be evident that out of a thousand fituations, which the axes of fuch forms may have, there is but one that can answer the phænomenon for which we want to account; and that is, when those axes are exactly in a line drawn from the object to the place of the observer. Here again we have a million of chances of which all but one are against any other hypothefis than that which we maintain, and which, for this reason, ought to be admitted.

The last thing to be inferred from the above related appearances is, that these clusters of stars are more condensed towards the center than at the furface. If there should be a group of stars in a spherical form, confitting of fuch as were equally scattered over all the assigned space, it would not appear to be very gradually more compressed and brighter in the middle; much less would it seem to have a bright nucleus in the center. A Ipherical cluster of an equal compreffion within,--for that such there are will be seen hereafter,--may be distinguished by the degrees of brightness which take

place in going from the center to the circumference. For, as a gradual increase of brightness does not agree with the degrees calculated from a fupposition of an equal scattering, and as the cluster has been proved to be spherical, it must needs be admitted that there is indeed a greater accumulation towards the center. And thus, from the above-mentioned appearances, we come to know that there are globular clusters of stars nearly equal in fize, which are scattered evenly at equal distances from the middle, but with an increasing accumulation towards the center.

66

We may now venture to raise a superstructure upon the arguments that have been drawn from the appearance of clusters of stars and nebulæ of the form I have been examining which is that of which I have made mention in my "I heoretical View-Formation of Nebula Form 1*." It it is to be remarked, that when I wrote the paragraph I refer to, I delineated nature as well as I do now; but, as I there gave only a general sketch, without referring to particular cafes, what I then delivered may have been looked upon as little better than hypothetical reasoning, whereas in the prefent instance this objection is entirely removed, fince actual and particular facts are brought to vouch for the truth of every inference.

Having then established that the clusters of stars of the 1st Form, and round nebulæ, are of a spherical figure, I think myself plainly authorifed to conclude that they are thus formed by the action of central powers. To manifeft the validity of this inference, the figure of the earth may be given as an inftance; whose rotundity, setting afide small deviations, the causes of which are well known, is without hesitation allowed to be a phænomenon decisively establishing a centripetal force. Nor do we stand in need of the revolving satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, and the Georgium Sidus, Sidus, to assure us that the fame powers are likewife lodged in the masses of these planets. Their globular figure alone must be admitted as a sufficient argument to render this point uncontrovertible. We also apply this inference with equal propriety to the body of the fun, as well as to that of Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon; as owing their spherical shape to the fame caufe. And how can we avoid inferring, that the construction of the clusters of stars, and nebulæ likewife, of which we have been speaking, is as evidently owing to central pow

ers ?

Besides, the step that I here make in my inference is in fact a very easy one, and fuch as ought freely to be granted. Have I not already shewn, that these clusters cannot have come to their present formation by any random scattering of stars. The doct rine of chance, by expofing the very great odds against such hypothefis, may be faid to demonftrate that the stars are thus affembled by fome power or other. Then, what do I attempt more than merely to lead the mind to the conditions under which this power is seen to act?

In a cafe of fuch consequence I may be permitted to be a little more diffuse, and draw additional arguments from the internal construction of spherical clusters and nebu'æ. If we find that there is not only a general form, which, as has been proved, is a fufficient manifestation of a centripetal force, what shall we fay when the accumulated condensation, which every where follows a direction towards a center, is even visible to the very eye? Were we not already acquainted with attraction, this gra dual condensation would point out a central power, by the remarkable difpofition of the fars tending to wards a center, In consequence of this visible accumulation, whether it may be owing to av tionely, or whether other powers may afflt in the

formation, we ought not to hesitate to afcribe the effect to such as are central; no phænomena being more decisive in that particular than those of which I am treating.

I am fully aware of the consequences I shall draw upon myself in but mentioning other powers that might contribute to the formation of elusters. A mere hint of this kind, it will be expected, ought not to be given withont fufficient foundation; but let it fuffice at present to remark, that my arguments cannot be affected by my terms: whether I am right to use the plural number, -central powers,-or whether I ought only to fay, the known central force of gravity,-my conclufions will be equally valid. I will however add, that the idea of other central powers being concerned in the conftruction of the fidereal heavens, is not one that has only lately occurred to me. Long ago I have entertained a certain theory of diversified central powers of attractions and repulfions; an exposition of which I have even delivered in the year 1780, and 1781, to the Philofophical Society then exifting at Bath, in feveral mathematical papers upon that fubject. I shall, however, set aside an explanation of this theory, which would not only exceed the intended limits of this paper, but is moreover not required for what remains at prefent to be added, and therefore may be given some other time, when I can enter more fully into the subject of the interior construction of fidereal fyftems.

To return, then, to the case immediately under our present confideration, it will be fufficient that I have abundantly proved that the formation of round clusters of stars and nebulæ is either owing to central powers, or at least to one fuch force as refers to a center.

I shall now extend the weight of my argument, by taking in likewife every cluiter of itars or nebulæ that thews