244 TIME, SPACE, AND INVISIBLE WORLDS. 



same in both. A goodly number of the Stars (and probably all) 

 are also variable like our Sun, but with periods of variability from 

 a day up to weeks, months, or many years. Gravitation is also 

 the property of all, binding in one universal bond of union all 

 Suns, Planets, Satellites, Meteoric, and Cometary Systems. 



The above analogies, assisted by probability and unquestioned 

 knowledge, the result of observation and experiment, prepare us 

 for the further analogy of " Invisible worlds in outer space." We 

 refer, of course, to dark solid globes like our Earth. Many 

 millions of years ago, when the contour of the Heavens was 

 vastly different to the present, and when our ever swiftly moving 

 Solar System occupied probably a totally different part of space, 

 our Sun, younger in years and much greater in diameter than now, 

 must have appeared to a telescopist (supposing one to be there), 

 at the distance of four year's light journey, as a large brilliant star, 

 attended by three or four liliputian Suns, the remaining four 

 nestling too closely to the large star to be distinguished. But 

 what appearance would it now present, say, to a telescopist on 

 one of the Planets revolving round our nearest neighbour. Alpha 

 Centauri ? All that he would see, in such case, of our glorious 

 Sun, his splendid retinue of planets, satellites, and millions of 

 meteor systems and comets, would be a little lonely star in a 

 vacant portion of Cassiopeia. What then has caused the differ- 

 ence ? Simply, the cooling down which all have undergone (the 

 interior four planets having become dark and solid), in the terrible 

 cold of outer space, with their consequent diminution in size 

 and brightness. Applying these two illustrations to our present 

 Heavens, we have the approximate history, past, present, or future, 

 of all the stars now separately visible to the naked eye, and which 

 number, on a clear night, about six thousand. Remembering that 

 these SIX thousand he at all distances from us, from twenty-five up 

 to a thousand billions of miles or more, we see at once why so 

 many stars appear as lonely or single. The distances between 

 them and the Sun-like Planets vanish into nothing from our enor- 

 mously distant point of observation. Nevertheless, in hundreds 

 of instances, our telescopes do descry these Sun-like Planets, and 

 have even traced them in their mighty orbits round their Primaries. 

 These are the facts, made patent by ocular demonstration, which 



