mbers of the
solar system. [Sidenote: Other solar bodies.] Other similar bodies, some
of which are of larger, some of smaller dimensions, perform similar
revolutions round the sun in appropriate periods of time.

[Sidenote: Magnitude of the universe.] If the magnitude of the earth be
too great for us to attach to it any definite conception, what shall we
say of the compass of the solar system? There is a defect in the human
intellect which incapacitates us for comprehending distances and periods
that are either too colossal or too minute. We gain no clearer insight
into the matter when we are told that a comet which does not pass beyond
the bounds of the system, may perhaps be absent on its journey for more
than a thousand years. Distances and periods such as these are beyond
our grasp. They prove to us how far human reason excels imagination, the
one measuring and comparing things of which the other can form no
conception, but in the attempt is utterly bewildered and lost.

[Sidenote: The infinity of worlds.] But as there are other globes like
our earth, so too there are other worlds like our solar system. There
are self-luminous suns exceeding in number all computation. The
dimensions of this earth pass into nothingness in comparison with the
dimensions of the solar system, and that system, in its turn, is only an
invisible point if placed in relation with the countless hosts of other
systems which form, with it, clusters of stars. Our solar system, far
from being alone in the universe, is only one of an extensive
brotherhood, bound by common laws and subject to like influences. Even
on the very verge of creation, where imagination might lay the beginning
of the realms of chaos, we see unbounded proofs of order, a regularity
in the arrangement of inanimate things, suggesting to us that there are
other intellectual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in
the abysses of space.

Though it may take a beam of light a million of years to bring to our
view those distant worlds, the end is not yet. Far away in the depths of
space we catch the faint gleams of other groups of stars like our own.
The finger of a man can hide them in their remoteness. Their vast
distances from one another have dwindled into nothing. They and their
movements have lost all individuality; the innumerable suns of which
they are composed blend all their collected light into one pale milky
glow.

[Sidenote: Insignificance of man.] Thus e