The researches of modern astronomers, aided by the magnificent instruments of Lord Rosse,[15] have, however, shown that many of the most remarkable nebulæ are only clusters of stars; so remote from us, that the light from them appears blended into one diffused sheet or luminous film. There are, however, the Magellanic clouds, and other singular patches of light, exhibiting changes which can only be explained on the theory of their slow condensation. There is no evidence to disprove the position that world-formation may still be going on; that a slow and gradual aggregation of particles, under the influence of laws with which we are acquainted, may be constantly in progress, to end, eventually, in the formation of a sphere. May we not regard the zodiacal light as the remains of a solar luminiferous atmosphere, which once embraced the entire system of which it is the centre?[16] Will not the strange changes which have been _seen to take place_ in cometary bodies, even whilst they were passing near the earth,--as the division of Biela’s comet and the ultimate formation of a second nucleus from the detached portion,--strongly tend to support the probability of the idea that attenuated matter has, in the progress of time, been condensed into solid masses, and that nebulous clouds must still exist in every state of tenuity in the regions of infinite space,[17] which, in the mysterious processes of world-formation, will, eventually, become stars, and reflect across the blue immensity of heaven, in brightness, that light which is the necessary agent of organisation and all manifestations of beauty?