Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/353



"Astronomy, considered in the most general way, is a great problem of mechanics, the arbitrary data of which are the elements of the celestial movements; its solution depends both on the accuracy of observations and on the perfection of analysis." , Preface to the Mécanique Céleste.

228. The solar system, as it was known at the beginning of the 18th century, contained 18 recognised members: the sun, six planets, ten satellites (one belonging to the earth, four to Jupiter, and five to Saturn), and Saturn's ring.

Comets were known to have come on many occasions into the region of space occupied by the solar system, and there were reasons to believe that one of them at least (chapter, § 200) was a regular visitor; they were, however, scarcely regarded as belonging to the solar system, and their action (if any) on its members was ignored, a neglect which subsequent investigation has completely justified. Many thousands of fixed stars had also been observed, and their places on the celestial sphere determined; they were known to be at very great though unknown distances from the solar system, and their influence on it was regarded as insensible.

The motions of the 18 members of the solar system were tolerably well known; their actual distances from one another had been roughly estimated, while the proportions between most of the distances were known with considerable accuracy. Apart from the entirely anomalous ring of Saturn, which may for the present be left out of consideration, most of the bodies of the system were known from