To be fair, Herschel thought we were at the center of our galaxy, rather than the entire universe. I'd expect Herschel to be acquainted with Olber's Paradox [1

To be fair, Herschel thought we were at the center of our galaxy, rather than the entire universe. I'd expect Herschel to be acquainted with Olber's Paradox [1]. Olber postulated that if the stars were uniformly distributed in space, the sky would be brightly illuminated in all directions. It isn't therefore, either stars are not uniformly distributed and we cannot be at the center of an infinite universe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox