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Thus, even were there but little direct evidence assignable for the Nebular Hypothesis, the probability of its truth would be strong. Its own high derivation and the low derivation of the antagonist hypothesis, would together form a weighty reason for accepting it–at any rate, provisionally. But the direct evidence assignable for the Nebular Hypothesis is by no means little. It is far greater in quantity, and more varied in kind, than is commonly supposed. Much has been said here and there on this or that class of evidences; but nowhere, so far as we know, have all the evidences been fully stated. We propose here to do something towards supplying the deficiency: believing that, joined with the a priori reasons given above, the array of a posteriori reasons will leave little doubt in the mind of any candid inquirer.

And first, let us address ourselves to those recent discoveries in stellar astronomy which have been supposed to conflict with this celebrated speculation.

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When Sir William Herschel, directing his great reflector to various nebulous spots, found them resolvable into clusters of stars, he inferred, and for a time maintained, that all nebulous spots are clusters of stars exceedingly remote from us. But after years of conscientious investigation, he concluded that “there were nebulosities which are not of a starry nature;” and on this conclusion was based his hypothesis of a diffused luminous fluid which, by its eventual aggregation, produced stars. A telescopic power much exceeding that used by Herschel, has enabled Lord Rosse to resolve some of the nebulae previously unresolved; and, returning to the conclusion which Herschel first formed on similar grounds but afterwards rejected, many astronomers have assumed that, under sufficiently high powers, every nebula would be decomposed into stars–that the irresolvability is due solely to distance. The hypothesis now commonly entertained is, that all nebulae are galaxies more or less like in nature to that immediately surrounding us; but that they are so inconceivably remote as to look, through ordinary telescopes, like small faint spots. And not a few have drawn the corollary, that by the discoveries of Lord Rosse the Nebular Hypothesis has been disproved.

Now, even supposing that these inferences respecting the distances and natures of the nebulae are valid, they leave the Nebular Hypothesis substantially as it was. Admitting that each of these faint spots is a sidereal system, so far removed that its countless stars give less light than one small star of our own sidereal system; the admission is in no way inconsistent with the belief that stars, and their attendant planets, have been formed by the aggregation of nebulous matter. Though, doubtless, if the existence of nebulous matter now in course of concentration be disproved, one of the evidences of the Nebular Hypothesis is destroyed, yet the remaining evidences remain. It is a tenable position that though nebular condensation is now nowhere to be seen in progress, yet it was once going on universally. And, indeed, it might be argued that the still-continued existence of diffused nebulous matter is scarcely to be expected; seeing that the causes which have resulted in the aggregation of one mass, must have been acting on all masses, and that hence the existence of masses not aggregated would be a fact calling for explanation. Thus, granting the immediate conclusions suggested by these recent disclosures of the six-feet reflector, the corollary which many have drawn is inadmissible.

But these conclusions may be successfully contested. Receiving them though we have been, for years past, as established truths, a critical examination of the facts has convinced us that they are quite unwarrantable. They involve so many manifest incongruities, that we have been astonished to find men of science entertaining them, even as probable. Let us consider these incongruities.