ic Aether currents, which form the medium by which all the
stellar planets with their attendant satellites are ever made to revolve
around that central body which supplies them with their light and heat.
Some such conclusion as this Sir John Herschel arrived at, for in his
_Treatise of Astronomy_, Art. 592, he writes: "Now for what purpose are
we to suppose such magnificent bodies scattered through the abyss of
space? Surely not to illuminate our nights, which an additional moon of
the 1/1000 part of our own moon would do much better. He must have
studied astronomy to little purpose who can suppose man to be the only
object of the Creator's care, or who does not see in the vast and
wonderful apparatus around us, provisions for other races of animated
beings. The stars, doubtless, are themselves suns, and may perhaps each
in its sphere be the presiding centre around which other planets or
bodies may be circulating."

Further, with reference to the stability of each of these stellar
systems, it is essential that the existence of a physical centrifugal
force should be recognized, in order that the unity and harmony of the
spheres should be maintained.

Professor Challis points this out very conclusively in the _Phil. Mag._
of 1859, where, writing on this point, he states: "It may also be
remarked, that if the Law of Gravity be absolute, there is no security
for the stability of a system of stars, whether the system be a Milky
Way or a nebulous cluster. For, however small the mutual attraction
between the constituent bodies may be, in the course of ages it must
produce a general movement towards the centre or densest region. But the
form of the Milky Way and of certain nebulae seems to present an utter
contradiction to any such tendency." With the conception, however, of a
physical centrifugal force or motion due to the pressure of a physical
medium, the stability of even the Milky Way may be physically conceived
and understood.

Again, when we consider the sun as a star, we find that it has two
motions of its own, one of rotation on an axis, and the other of
translation in an orbit, such rotation being due to the fact that it is
a magnet and has ever circulating round it electro-magnetic Aether
currents (Art. 91). By inference, therefore, we arrive at the fact that
every star is a magnet, as suggested by Professor Schuster, and
possesses rotation on an axis, such rotation being due to exactly the
same cause as produces