1
by Alexander von Humboldt
Translated by E C Otte
from the 1858 Harper & Brothers edition of Cosmos, volume 1
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The manifold translatory changes of the stars, not those produced by the
parallaxes at which they are seen from the changing position of the
spectator, but the true changes constantly going on in the regions of space,
afford us incontrovertible evidence of the 'dominion of the laws of
attraction' in the remotest regions of space, beyond the limits of our solar
system. The existence of these laws is revealed to us by many phenomena,
as, for instance, by the motion of double stars, and by the amount of
retarded or accelerated motion in different parts of their elliptic orbits.
Human inquiry need no longer pursue this subject in the domain of vague
conjecture, or amid the undefined analogies of the ideal world; for even
here the progress made in the method of astronomical observations and
calculations has enabled astronomy to take up its position on a firm basis.
It is not only the discovery of the astounding numbers of double and
multiple stars revolving round a center of gravity lying 'without' their
system (2800 such systems having been discovered up to 1837), but rather the
extension of our knowledge regarding the fundamental forces of the whole
material world, and the proofs we have obtained of the universal empire of
the laws of attraction, that must be ranked among the most brilliant
discoveries of the age.
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