a straight line; and while this multiplicity of motion goes on,
the whole aggregation sweeps majestically around Sirius, its mighty
sun. Our little solar system contains, as we know, about one thousand
planets, satellites, and asteroids large enough to be dignified by the
name of heavenly bodies. Vast numbers of the stars have a hundred and
even a thousand times the mass of our sun, and their systems being
relatively as complex as ours--in some cases even more so--they contain
a hundred thousand or a million individual bodies.

"Over sixty million bright or incandescent stars were visible to the
terrestrial telescopes a hundred years ago, the average size of which
far exceeds our sun. To the magnificent telescopes of to-day they are
literally countless, and the number can be indefinitely extended as
your optical resources grow. Yet the number of stars you see is
utterly insignificant compared with the cold and dark ones you cannot
see, but concerning which you are constantly learning more, by
observing their effect on the bright ones, both by perturbing them and
by obscuring their rays. Occasionally, as you know, a star of the
twelfth or fifteenth magnitude, or one that has been invisible, flares
up for several months to the fourth or fifth, through a collision with
some dark giant, and then returns to what it was in the beginning, a
gaseous, filmy nebula. These innumerable hosts of dark monsters,
though dead, are centres of systems, like most of the stars you can see.

"A slight consideration of these figures will show that,
notwithstanding the number of souls the Creator has given life on
earth, each one might in fact have a system to himself; and that,
however long the little globe may remain, as it were, a mint, in which
souls are tried by fire and moulded, and receive their final stamp,
they will always have room to circulate, and will be prized according
to the impress their faces or hearts must show. But Sirius itself is
moving many times faster than the swiftest cannon ball, carrying its
system with it; and I see you asking, 'To what does all this motion
tend?' I will show you. Many quadrillions of miles away, so far that
your most powerful telescopes have not yet caught a glimmer, rests in
its serene grandeur a star that we call Cosmos, because it is the
centre of this universe. Its diameter is as great as the diameter of
Cassandra's orbit, and notwithstanding its terrific heat, its specific
gravity