Quote#Nature
May serve another very important end. ...Several stars of the first…
Quote byWilliam Herschel · 1738–1822
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880), Ch.4 "Life and Works" quote from "Researches on the Motion of the Sun and of the Solar System in Space" (1782)..
English (original)
may serve another very important end. ...Several stars of the first magnitude have been observed or suspected to have a proper motion; hence we may surmise that our sun, with all its planets and comets, may also have a motion towards some particular point of the heavens
— William Herschel
More from William Herschel
An equal scattering of the stars may be admitted in certain calculations; but when we examine the milky way, or the closely compressed clusters of stars... this supposed equality of scattering must be given up.
'We may... have surmised nebulae to be no other than clusters of stars disguised by their very great distance, but a longer experience and better acquaintance with the nature of nebulae, will not allow a general admission of such a …
A knowledge of the construction of the heavens has always been the ultimate object of my observations...
I must freely confess that by continuing my sweeps of the heavens my opinion of the arrangement of the stars and their magnitudes, and of some other particulars, has undergone a gradual change...
I compared it to H Geminorum and the small star in the quartile between Auriga and Gemini, and finding it so much larger than either of them, suspected it to be a comet.
An object may not only contain stars, but also nebulosity not composed of them.