sses 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 m
