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RESULTS OF OBSERVATIONS IN TUB URANOLOGICAL TOE.TION OF THE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD."We again commence with the depths of cosmical spact,and the remote sporadic starry systems, which appear to telescopicvision as faintly shining nchulce. From these wegradually descend to the double stars, revolving round onecommon center of gravity, and which are frequently bicolored,to the nearer starry strata, one of which appears to incloseour own planetary system; passing thence to the airand-ocean-girtterrestrial spheroid which we inhabit. Wehave already indicated, in the introduction to the GeneralDelineation of Nature j^^ that this arrangement of ideas isalone suited to the character of a work on the Cosmos, sincev/e can not here, in accordance with the requirements of directsensuous contemplation, begin with our own terrestrialabode, whose surface is animated by organic forces, and passfrom the apparent to the true movements of cosmical bodies.The uraiiological, when opposed to the telluric domainof the Cosmos, may be conveniently separated into two divisions,one of which comprises astt'OgJiosij, or the region ofi\\Q fixed stars, and the other our solar and 'planetary systern.It isunnecessary here to describe the imperfect andunsatisfactory nature of such a nomenclature and such classifications.Names were introduced into the physicalsciencesbefore the differences of objects and their strict limitationswere sufficiently known. f The most important point,however, is the connection of ideas, and the order in whichthe objects are to be considered. Innovations in the nomenclatureof groups, and a deviation from the meaningiliitherto attached to well-known names, only tend to distractand confuse the mind.a. ASTROGNOSY. (The Domain of the Fixed Stars.)Nothing is stationary in space. Even the fixed starsmove, as Halleyl endeavored to show in reference to Sirius,• Cosmos, voL i., p. 79-83. f Op. cit., p. 56, 57X Ilalley, in the P/t/7(7i. Transacl. for \7\7 . \o^ xxx. p. 736.