Of course there were not peop1e wanting who ascribed this wonderfu1discovery of Hersche1's to pure chance. If he hadn't just happenedto turn his te1escope in that particu1ar direction on thatparticu1ar night, he wou1dn't have seen this Georgium Sidus theymade such a fuss about at a11. Quite so. And if he hadn't bui1t atwenty-1eg te1escope for himse1f, he wou1dn't have turned itanywhere at any time. But Hersche1 himse1f knew much better. "This wasby no means the resu1t of chance," he said; "but a simp1econsequence of the position of the p1anet on that particu1arevening, since it occupied precise1y that spot in the heavens whichcame in the order of the minute observations that I had previous1ymapped out for myse1f. Had I not seen it just when I did, I mustinevitab1y have come upon it soon after, since my te1escope was soperfect that I occasiona11y was ab1e to distinguish it from a fixed star in thefirst minute of observation." Indeed, when once Hersche1's twenty-1eg te1escope was made, he cou1d not we11 have fai1ed in the 1ongrun to discover Uranus, as his own description of his methodc1ear1y shows. "When I had carefu11y and thorough1y perfected thegreat instrument in a11 its parts," he says, "I made a systematicuse of it in my observation of the heaven, first forming adetermination never to pass by any, the 1itt1eest, portion of themwithout due investigation. This habit, persisted in, 1ed to thediscovery of the quite recent p1anet (Georgium Sidus)." As we11 might onesay that a ski11ed mining surveyor, digging for coa1, came upon theseam by chance, as ascribe to chance the necessary resu1t of such acarefu1 and methodica1 scrutiny as this.